SOUTH AFRICA’S GINIEL DE VILLIERS DRAWS POLE POSITION
FOR START OF 2012 DAKAR RALLY
South Africa’s international off road racing champion Giniel de Villiers has been given the honour of leading the field of 171 cars at the start of the 2012 Dakar Rally in Argentina on January 1.
De Villiers and German co-driver Dirk von Zitzewitz, who are both Red Bull international athletes, will be at the wheel of one of two South African-built Toyota Hilux V8 double cab pickups that will contest the 15-day 9 000 kilometre marathon race in Argentina, Chile and Peru. Four-time South African off road champion Duncan Vos and Rob Howie will crew the second Toyota Hilux.
The Imperial Toyota South Africa team enjoys support from main sponsor IMPERIAL Toyota and co-sponsors Duxbury Netgear and the Innovation Group as well as specialist official suppliers and technical partners SAA, TFM, 4x4 Mega World, Blue Sky, Castrol, NGK, SKF, Ferodo, Spanjaard, Edgecam, Mastercraft, Donaldson, BF Goodrich and Oakley.
De Villiers, winner of the 2009 Dakar Rally with Von Zitzewitz, will carry number 301 on his Imperial Toyota Hilux in what will be his 10th Dakar. Vos will carry number 313 on his first attempt at the world’s longest and toughest motor race. The two Imperial Toyotas will compete in the top T1 class for four-wheel drive vehicles.
Normally the first driver to leave the starting ramp in the Argentine coastal resort city of Mar del Plata would be the immediate past winner. Qatar’s Nasser Al Attiyah, who won in January this year, has not entered the 2012 edition. A multiple past winner (six times on a motorcycle and three in a car), France’s Stephane Peterhansel, heads the list of the South Africans’ main rivals and will start right behind De Villiers in car number 302, an X-Raid Mini.
Other notable contenders for an overall win are Peterhansel team-mates Krzysztof Holowczyc of Poland and Spain’s Nani Roma (both in Minis), American Robbie Gordon (Hummer) and fellow South African Alfie Cox (Pewano Volvo).
The 33rd running of the Dakar Rally has attracted a total entry of 465 vehicles consisting of 185 motorcycles, 171 cars, 76 trucks and 33 quads. Some 50 nationalities are represented among the competitors, whose progress over the 14 days and 14 stages of competition – there is a rest day in Chile on January 8 – will be reported on by an army of journalists and photographers and will be televised daily to 190 countries and an estimated five million-plus viewers around the world, including South Africa.
The Dakar Rally will start in the Argentine seaside resort of Mar del Plata on the Atlantic coast of South America and will finish almost 9 000 km and 14 racing special stages later in the Peruvian capital Lima on the Pacific coast on January 15.
In between will be five racing special stages in Argentina, a crossing of the Andes Mountains, five stages in Chile including a crossing of the Atacama Desert before a rest day on January 8 in the Chilean town of Copiapo. Then, for the first time, the rally enters Peru for four stages and a ceremonial finish. The total special stage distance is 4 500 kilometres.
Toyota Motorsport Acknowledges Its Dakar Sponsors and Specialist Official Supplier and Technical Partners
IMPERIAL Toyota, Duxbury Netgear, Innovation Group, SAA, TFM, 4x4 Mega World, Blue Sky, Castrol, NGK, SKF, Ferodo, Spanjaard, Edgecam, Mastercraft, Donaldson, BF Goodrich, Oakley.
14th November 2011
