POLOKWANE – After finishing third in Toyota South Africa Motors’ first attempt at the world’s longest and toughest motorsport event in 2012 and second this year, the Toyota Imperial South Africa Team will attempt to win the 35th running of the Dakar Rally in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile in January in what would be a major coup for South African motorsport.
Carrying the hopes of South African sport fans will be 2009 winners and 2013 runners-up, Giniel de Villiers and Dirk von Zitzewitz as well as Dakar rookies, Leeroy Poulter and Rob Howie, who navigated Duncan Vos to 10th place in 2012.
They will be at the wheels of two new racing Toyota Imperial Hilux V8 4x4s, designed and built by Toyota Motorsport South Africa and currently nearing completion in their workshop in Johannesburg.
What are the chances of Toyota winning the Dakar?
“Just to complete the 8 500-kilometre route through two countries over 14 days, with its 13 timed special stages, is an achievement. We are very proud of our podium finishes in the last two events and we will be aiming to finish on the podium again. We have all worked very hard so far to achieve this objective and we have a new Hilux to help us do it. A win would be a great reward for the whole team and for its sponsors.”
Hall points out that the team is not going for the first time. “We know what to expect. We are not looking to make major changes, we don’t need to. We have a very successful package which we have developed over the past three years and the results we have achieved have shown this,” asserted Hall.
For Dakar Rally veterans, De Villiers (41) and Von Zitzewitz (45), it will be the 11th time each of them has competed in the event. De Villiers had been at the wheel of a car on each occasion and Von Zitzewitz once on a motorcycle (he was rookie of the year when he finished fifth in 1997) and 10 times as a co-driver.
For Poulter (33), more used to being a front runner in the national rally championship in a Castrol Team Toyota Yaris, it will be a once in a lifetime first appearance in the big daddy of all off road races, while Howie (40) will be navigating his way across South America for the third year in a row.
Poulter, like De Villiers, is one of South Africa’s most versatile motor sportsmen, having won national championships in motocross, karting and circuit production car racing as well as boasting a national rally class championship and world karting championships.
The 2014 Dakar Rally starts in Rosario in Argentina on January 5 and ends in the Chilean city of Valparaiso on January 18.
