THEY resembled no sign of fatigue, yet those bodies endured hardship for two-weeks at the Dakar Rally- Saudi Arabia.
This includes a damaged hydraulic jack and a punishing stage completed without power steering, punctures, etc.
The Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa team returned home knowing position 10, means preparations for the season 2026/27 start now.
“We showed that we had the pace to fight for a podium, but Dakar doesn’t always go to plan. Even so, being part of this team is special. You arrive with a damaged car at night, and by morning it’s perfect again. That gives you confidence to keep pushing,” cited João Ferreira and co-driver Filipe Palmeiro, whose car was shaped by tyre damage and time lost nursing the car home.
Having to endure more than 7,000 kilometres of racing across Saudi Arabia, Dakar 2026 proved to be one of the toughest editions in recent memory, with an unusually high level of competitiveness and a finish rate that underlined just how difficult the event has become.
Dakar has become innovative as more young drivers show competence and endurance.
As a result, a new car will be unveiled for the 2026/26 Dakar Rally, according to Team Principal Shameer Variawa, he assured members of the media at the InterContinental Hotel, OR Tambo Int’l on Tuesday morning, to welcome the drivers.
“Our strategy was to get through the first week cleanly and set ourselves up for the second half of the rally. What we couldn’t anticipate was the sheer number of punctures we encountered.
We went through close to 36 flat tyres during the race. Mechanically, the cars were strong and reliable, and from a performance point of view, we were where we needed to be,” remarked Variawa, also noting, the modern Dakar has evolved into a flat-out sprint.
“The benchmark has risen across the board. Everyone is pushing harder, every day, and our Hiluxes took an incredible beating and still finished. That speaks volumes about the work done by the engineers and mechanics.”
Despite those challenges, the durability of the GR Hilux IMT EVO once again stood out, particularly on the faster and rockier stages where the pace rarely dipped.
For Guy Botterill and navigator Oriol Mena, Dakar 2026 was a rally of resilience. If not for a series of early setbacks — including a damaged hydraulic jack and a punishing stage completed without power steering — their overall result could have told a very different story.
“There were days where we had genuinely unforeseen issues that cost us a lot of time,” Botterill explained. “But even then, we managed to claw back time on the leaders. When you strip out a few of those major incidents, we were right there in the fight.”
Toyota SA Vice-President, Marketing Glenn Crompton said simply reaching the final podium in Yanbu was an achievement in itself.
“This is an incredibly difficult race to finish. When you look beyond the final results and study the performance day by day, waypoint by waypoint, we were consistently at the front of the race. Unfortunately, punctures were the one element we couldn’t control, and that clouded the overall picture. But this was a very strong Dakar for us as a team.”
As the team now turns its focus to the rest of the 2026 season and the long-term road to Dakar 2027, the sense on home soil was one of pride rather than disappointment.
“There’s a huge amount of sacrifice involved,” said Crompton.
“When you see what this team puts in — the professionalism, the passion, the resilience — you realise that every single person can take pride in what was achieved. That, more than any trophy, is what this journey is really about.”
All the drivers thanked technicians and kitchen staff for making this a memorable experience, especially the likes of Oriol Mena, who joined the team mid-way through the 2025 SARRC season.
On the campaign, we invested a lot of resources during the shooting of the Ad, that was peppered with human-touch and fun for the people of SA, who are motor adrenalin junkies, concluded Crompton, who said they opted to use two familiar comedians for the campaign.
Image supplied (Team Principal Shameer Variawa- middle- recorded with Dakar Rally- Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa drivers, at the InterContinental Hotel, OR Tambo Int’l Airport on Tuesday morning, for media briefing. Toyota SA Vice-President, Marketing Glenn Crompton-from right- also joined the team for pic opportunity).
