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January 2, 2021
JEDDAH – South African cars and crews starred, and against all odds, the 2021 Dakar arrived at initial orders on Saturday. 286 cars, bicycles, trucks and other gadgets took to the road angrily in Saturday’s Prologue, to determine their starting order for Sunday’s opening stage.
It was a great start for South African vehicles, as Johannesburg-built Toyota Hiluxes and Century CR6s dominated the lead. Qatar’s Toyota Gazoo Racing Nasser Al Attiyah will start the Dakar in pole position on Sunday ahead of the SA pair, former quad podium man Brian Baragwanath and former motorcyclist Taye Perry, who scored a prologue time identical to Attiyah.
Three more Toyotas, Saudi local hero Yazeen Al Rajhi, Pole Jakub Przygonski and Dutch driver Bernhard Ten Brinke will follow the Century buggy powered by Corvette V8. Orlando Terranova’s 4×4 was the best of the Minis and the only non-SA intruder in sixth place. Another piece of good news for SA fans was Gazoo Toyota SA Hilux rookie team Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings, who outpointed French driver Mattieu Serradori in another SA-built Century Corvette.
Sheikh Al Qassimi’s Peugeot starts ninth ahead of Sebastien Loeb in the Hunter. The fantastic mini buggies driven by Stephane Peterhansel starting at 14th and Carlos Sainz at 28th, and SA hero Giniel de Villiers at 18th get off to a dusty start on Sunday. Another South African team, Shameer Variyawa and Dennis Murphy took a provisional 26th place in their Gazoo Toyota Hilux.
On two wheels, defending champion Ricky Brabec made his last off-road position count by being the fastest by six seconds of his Honda teammate Joan Barreda Bort, on the KTM of rookie Daniel Short and Ross Branch of Botswana. a splendid fourth on his official Dakar debut for Yamaha.
Hero rider Sebastian Bühler was an excellent fifth for Andrew Short’s Husqvarna Hero, Kevin Benavides on another Honda, Pablo Quintanilla’s Husqvarna, Toby Price’s KTM and Joaquim Oliveira on another Hero. Botswana gentleman James Alexander will line up 84th on his Yamaha.
Another WRC star, Kris Meeke, was the fastest of the light cars in his dubut career at the Dakar for PH Sport. He beat the American couple Seth Quintero and Mitch Guthrie’s REd Bull OT3. Alexandre Giroud will start off the quads first when the Dakar starts on Sunday. The Frenchman was fastest in Saturday’s prologue ahead of Manuel Andujar and Kamil Wisniewski.
The Truck Prologue had not yet been resumed at the time of this writing; check back later for news of those pioneers.
Saturday’s Prologue does not count towards the actual 2021 Dakar race. The 25km stage is simply to set the starting order for Sunday’s opening leg of the 4800km race through the Arabian desert for the next two weeks.
Fans can follow the Auto Live Ticker to keep up with the action from the Dakar 2021 as it happens every day for the next two weeks at theauto.page/sport. A full race report will be posted on www.motorsportmedia.co.za as soon as possible after the car finishes each day.
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