Dacia Sandriders Target South African Safari Rally Glory
Dacia Sandriders chase further FIA Rally-Raid Championship honours as the South African Safari Rally joins the World Rally-Raid Championship calendar from 18 to 24 May. The third round of the 2025 W2RC season marks the series’ debut in South Africa while returning the squad to the continent where it celebrated its maiden victory at the 2024 Rallye du Maroc.
The team lands in Sun City buoyed by another win, steering the Dacia Sandrider to first place at February’s Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge after five demanding days in the dunes. That Middle-Eastern triumph vaulted Nasser Al-Attiyah to the top of the provisional W2RC Drivers’ table and placed Édouard Boulanger first among Navigators. At the same time, Dacia Sandriders sit second in the Manufacturers’ standings.
Although the South African Safari Rally represents new territory for the squad, its mix of gravel tracks, open savanna, dense bush and mountain passes offers the ideal next step in the quest to master rally-raid’s most demanding discipline. Team Principal Tiphanie Isnard believes careful preparation and humility will pay dividends. “We look forward to discovering this new event in the World Rally-Raid Championship. We have been working hard to prepare for the South African Safari Rally, which has a different profile from what we've experienced until now. We approach this rally humbly because we haven’t competed in South Africa before and will only test in the country a few days before the start. We will be in the Toyota team’s playground, knowing they will be powerful again.
“The target will be to maintain Nasser and Édouard’s position in the Drivers’ and Navigators’ championships and strengthen our position in the Manufacturers’ championship. Above all, we head to South Africa to gain crucial experience and knowledge of this terrain by getting our two Dacia Sandriders to the finish.”
The 2,759-kilometre event begins with a 25-kilometre Prologue on Monday, 19 May. Stage 1, a 285-kilometre timed loop south-west of the Sun City bivouac, follows on Tuesday. Stage 2 starts the Marathon on Wednesday, sending crews 418 kilometres further south-west to an overnight camp, with a 537-kilometre return leg on Thursday. Friday adds a 698-kilometre loop near the Botswana border, and Saturday’s deciding 290-kilometre finale, including an eight-kilometre Power Selective Section, unfolds close to Sun City.
Typical May weather promises largely dry stages, yet light rain remains possible. Temperatures may swing from five degrees Celsius at dawn to 26 °C by afternoon.
Technical Director Philip Dunabin converted anticipation into practical upgrades for the Ultimate-category Dacia Sandriders, reinforcing bodywork, reshaping wheelarches, fitting twin snorkels and revising engine maps for altitude. “We don’t have much information or knowledge of the event, but we know there will be a variety of terrain and places with overhanging vegetation, which can break the bodywork and windscreen. There is also the risk from water crossings, where the water can be pretty deep if it rains heavily.
“There are new elements of bodywork added on the front of the car to protect the windscreen and protect it from branches and so on, which get trapped between the canopy above the windshield and the windscreen pillar.
“We’ve made modifications to the rear of the front wheel arches so that they don’t get ripped off by the vegetation quite so easily, a problem we had in the Dakar early on.
“We’ve also added a new air intake system so that a snorkel will be fitted to each side of the car. That will run up the windscreen pillar and feed the air through the back of the wheel arch to the air filter box, which sits just underneath the back of the bonnet.
“At the rear of the car, we’ve removed the boot we had earlier in the program and made a new cosmetic feature to give it a tidier appearance that’s more in keeping with Dacia styling.
“Because the stages run between 1000 and 1500 metres above sea level, we’ve made several modifications to the engine mapping to ensure we run at maximum power in all the stages.
“From the reliability side, we’ve strengthened the longitudinal transmission shafts going to the front axle with some new parts, improved dimensions and tolerances.”
Reigning Dakar champion Al-Attiyah shares that confidence. “Although it’s new terrain for the Dacia Sandrider, we start the South African Safari Rally confidently because the team has done an excellent job preparing for this event, which we know won’t be easy. After our Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge victory in February, Édouard and I lead the championship, so the most important objective will be to keep our positions at the halfway point of the season. I’m excited to experience this new event, having tested for another manufacturer in the country a few years ago. I also want to show that the Dacia Sandrider's performance is strong in the desert and the kind of mixed terrain we can expect in South Africa.”
Sébastien Loeb adds his determination. “I've been to South Africa once before for the World Rallycross Championship, but that won't help much in terms of experience. From what I have seen, which was also the case in Kenya when I was competing in the World Rally Championship, we will experience broken surfaces and challenging terrain. The objective for me is clear: after being unable to finish the first two events of the season, I want to get to the end in South Africa. At the same time, I also want to reproduce the performance in the Middle East but avoid the mistakes that held us back in rounds one and two. As is always the case in W2RC, the level of the competition will be high. While it’s a mission of discovery for me, many crews have done this event before, making things even more challenging. But if we can finish the event, that will already represent a good result.”
