SA’s Variawa is youngest Dakar Rally stage winner

Toyota Gazoo Racing enjoyed a good stage 3 at Dakar 2025 when South African Henk Lategan extended his advantage in the overall car standings on Tuesday.

His young teammate and compatriot, Saood Variawa, made up for the crash on Monday that threatened his further participation by bouncing back to score his maiden Dakar stage win.

Staving off a late challenge from the X-raid Mini entry of Guerlain Chicherit, Variawa reached the finish line with a 33sec margin to become the youngest Dakar stage winner at the age of 19.

Guillaume de Mevius was third in another Mini. Five-time Dakar winner Nasser al-Attiyah was sixth in the Dacia Sandrider, with the top Ford Raptor driver, Mattias Ekstrom, in seventh.

Toyota Gazoo Hilux driver Giniel de Villiers was 10th, with teammate Lategan in 12th spot, which was enough to retain the overall lead by 17min 17sec over Al-Attiyah and 9min 34sec over Ekstrom.

Nine-times world rally champion Sebastien Loeb rolled his Dacia in the Saudi desert on Tuesday as the Dakar Rally continued to take a toll of the big names after the exit of 2024 winner Carlos Sainz. Sainz turned his Ford upside down on Sunday, dealing too much damage to the car’s roll cage to continue after just two stages.

Loeb, who had started the day sixth, and co-driver Fabian Lurquin were unhurt in the incident 12km into the third 327km stage from Bisha to Al-Henakiyah and resumed after making repairs.

They stopped again at the 63km mark, however, and finished the stage trailing Lategan by 1hr 14min and dropping out of the top 15 in a big blow to their hopes of a first Dakar win.

The two-week rally, regarded as the world’s toughest endurance event and now held entirely in Saudi Arabia, ends on January 17.

Reuters