South Africa’s ‘Mr Reliable’ Giniel de Villiers eyes more Dakar success

Versatility is a mark of really great race car drivers. These days, most people who earn their living in the adrenaline game arena are specialists, sticking to single-seaters, sports cars, saloon cars, rally cars or cross-country vehicles.

Cross-pollination between circuit racing and off-road competition is basically unheard of. For a circuit racing champion to become one of the most successful Dakar Rally competitors in history is unlikely. Yet, that is exactly what South Africa’s Giniel de Villiers has achieved. De Villiers, now 48, is rated as one of the top five Dakar competitors of all time. He has tackled the big race 17 times, finishing on every occasion.

That statistic will be the cause of despondency for scores of competitors who have entered the event dozens of times, without ever reaching the finish line. There is more – Giniel has finished in the top ten places on 16 of those 17 occasions. His record shows one victory, four second places, three third places, two fourth places, three fifth places, two seventh places, one ninth and one 11th place. Which is why the South African will be rated as one of the pre-event favourites in the 2021 event, that will be run through Saudi Arabia from 3 to 15 January.

De Villiers clinched the South African Touring Car championship with a Nissan Primera four times in succession from 1997 to 2000. Picture: Tony Alves

De Villiers and Alex Haro will man one of four Toyota Gazoo Racing Hilux bakkies in the race, with the others in the hands of Nasser Al-Attiyah/Mathieu Baumel, Henk Lategan/Brett Cummins and Shameer Variawa/Dennis Murphy.

De Villiers started his career in South African saloon car racing, moving from Stannic Group N standard cars to Touring Cars, where he joined forces with legendary race car engineer Glyn Hall, to clinch the South African championship with a Nissan Primera four times in succession from 1997 to 2000.

When Touring Car racing died after 2000, Nissan switched to off-road racing, where De Villiers proceeded to clinch the South African title nine times. The locally based Nissan team also entered the Dakar from 2003, with De Villiers finished fifth, seventh and fourth in the next three years, respectively.

In 2009, De Villiers and Dirk von Zitzewitz took the works Volkswagen Touareg to overall victory in the Dakar Rally – thus far, the only South African overall victory in the big race.

He was signed by the Volkswagen team when Nissan withdrew from the sport at the end of 2005 and rewarded Volkswagen for their faith in him by taking one of their Touareg entries to second place on the 2006 Dakar. In 2007 he and Dirk von Zitzewitz joined forces and won four stages, before engine problems dropped them to 11th place – to date De Villiers’ poorest performance in the Dakar.

With the 2008 event cancelled due to a civil war in Africa, the Dakar was held through South America in 2009. The De Villiers/Von Zitzewitz/Volkswagen combination took overall victory – a first for South Africa. Seventh and second places followed in 2010 and 2011 respectively, before Volkswagen killed off their Dakar programme.

That led De Villiers back to his former team boss Hall, who was now running Toyota South Africa’s motorsport programme. He proceeded to drive Hilux racing bakkies in the Dakar from 2012 to 2020, scoring two seconds, three thirds, a fourth, two fifths and a ninth place.

De Villiers has stood on the Dakar podium five times in the colours of Toyota Gazoo Racing.

One of Toyota’s problems over the years was the Dakar organisers’ rules, that limit large V8 petrol-engined cars’ air intakes, to equalise their performance with that of smaller-engined vehicles. The rule gives turbo-charged vehicles a large performance advantage on fast stretches of the route, plus stages at high altitude.

The restrictions will be less stringent in 2021, with all cars limited to a top speed of 180km/h. This should narrow the gap between normally aspirated and turbocharged vehicles in terms of general performance. Like every other year, De Villiers’ main objective in the 2021 event will be to finish.

“To finish first, first you have to finish,” is his motto. And perhaps, just perhaps, once that is achieved, it could be time for another South African Dakar victory in a few weeks’ time.

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