Stage 1: Sun City – Sun City: 260km, liaison 295km
Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings grabbed the early advantage after the opening stage of the South African Safari Rally, the third round of the FIA World Rally-Raid Championship which kicked off from the Sun City resort on Tuesday.
Having just signed to race for Toyota Gazoo Racing’s European team, Lategan, the four-time and defending South African Rally-Raid champion, controlled matters from the start of the stage outside the North West Province town of Lichtenburg which is farming country. It was Lategan’s third W2RC stage win and Toyota’s 70th!
20-year-old Jayden Els and co-driver Johan Swemmer completed the stage with the second fastest time overall in their Red Lined Revo GTR Ultimate T1+, beating the likes of Nasser Al-Attiyah, Sebastien Loeb and Carlos Sainz along the way! He later received a two-minute penalty for missing a waypoint – one of literally several dozen penalties that were dished out to many competitors – which pushed the talented youngster down to fourth overall.
Second overall went to Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz in their M-Sport Ford Raptor, 2’38” behind the flying Hilux Ultimate T1+, followed by Sebastien Loeb and Fabian Lurquin in the first of the Dacia Sandriders. The nine-time WRC champion had the disadvantage of opening the road so in the scheme of things, the French pair did exceptionally well to only lose 3’34” to the leaders and finish 56 seconds behind “El Matador”.
With Els demoted to fourth, fifth place was filled by Nani Roma/Alex Haro in the second M-Sport Raptor, 31 seconds behind Els with Lucas Moraes/Armand Monleon a further 18 seconds adrift in the Toyota Gazoo Racing Hilux.
Seventh was a brilliant result for the German Daniel Schroder and co-driver Henri Kohne in their WCT Amarok, followed by Brian Baragwanath and Leonard Cremer in the factory Century CR-7 in eighth, just four seconds behind.
Following his penalty for missing a waypoint, the defending W2RC Champion Nasser Al-Attiyah and Edouard Boulanger found themselves in ninth overall, some 5’25” off the lead. Seth Quintero/Denis Zenz brought their TGR Hilux home in tenth.
Martin Prokop/Viktor Chytka finished 11th in their Jipocar Ford Raptor RS Cross Country, ahead of the prologue winners Gareth Woolridge/Boyd Dreyer in their NWM Evo Plus which made its competitive debut on this event.
Daniel Sanders missed a waypoint early in the stage and was handed a two-minute penalty, dropping him to third on the day, 1′55″ behind Ricky Brabec and Ross Branch. The two front-runners posted identical times, so the tiebreak goes to the results of the previous selective section, the prologue. With the American having been quicker than the Botswanan yesterday, Ricky Brabec is declared the winner of stage 1! It marks his tenth W2RC stage win, coming four months after his last, back in stage 6 of the Dakar.
Later news came through that several RallyGP riders were credited back time after the stage, most notably Ross Branch, who has now been officially declared the winner of stage 1. He finishes ahead of the factory Hondas of Adrien Van Beveren (+55″) and Ricky Brabec (+1′09″). The prologue winner, Daniel Sanders (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing), drops to fourth, 3′04″ back, after receiving a 2-minute penalty for a missed waypoint. Branch moves into the overall lead with a 50-second margin over Van Beveren and 1′03″ over Brabec. The KTMs of Sanders (+2′44″) and Luciano Benavides (+3′23″) round out the top 5.
Stage 2 will be held under marathon rules. The convoy will roll out of Sun City and reach the Marathon Camp after 623 km (including 356 km against the clock), where no service crews will be awaiting the competitors.
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