Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings – four-time South African Rally Raid Champions – set the fastest time in the 29km Prologue stage that got Dakar 2025 underway in Saudi Arabia, powering their Toyota Gazoo Racing Hilux Ultimate T1+ to a time 0.1 seconds ahead of Swedes Mattias Ekstrom and Emil Bergkvist, giving the new Ford Raptor a strong start.
Third was the current W2RC Champion Nasser Al Attiyah and Eduardo Boulanger in the first of the Dacia Sandriders, 20 seconds behind the South Africans, followed by the Lithuanian Rokas Baciuska and his Spanish co-driver Oriol Mena in the first of the Overdrive Racing Toyota Hiluxes
The X-Raid Portuguese pairing of Joao Ferreira and Filipe Palmeiro gave notice of their intent after clocking the fifth fastest time in their Mini JCW, pipping Brian Baragwanath and Leonard Cremer’s Century Racing CR-7 by four seconds, in turn just three seconds ahead of the second Dacia Sandrider of nine-time WRC Champion Sebastian Loeb/Fabian Lurquin.
Lucas Moraes and Armand Monleon finished eighth in their Toyota Gazoo Racing Hilux with Nani Roma/Alex Haro making it two of the new Ford Raptors inside the top ten, tied with the Toyota pair.
19-year-old Saood Variawa and French co-driver Francois Cazalet finished in the top 10 in their Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa Hilux, a superb effort for the youngster.
The prologue doesn’t count towards overall times, but sets the starting order for the first stage tomorrow (Saturday) with the top 10 able to choose their starting positions.
The 2025 Dakar Rally is made up of 806 competitors driving or riding 440 vehicles in one or other of the rally’s classes.
The ultimate motorsport challenge will once again unfold across Saudi Arabia, with competitors facing over 8,000 kilometres of treacherous terrain, including more than 5,000 kilometres of timed special stages.
Stage one runs from Bisha to Bisha over a total distance of 500km with 413 km of racing mileage on roads that comprise 65% sand, 26% dirt track and 9% rocky tracks.
