Letter formation is the order of the day after the 48-hour stage for Giniel de Villiers and Dirk von Zitzewitz. After a bad accident, Toyota drivers fell out of the top ten.
De Villiers and von Zitzewitz should embrace the Dakar tragedy. The South-East African Holstein duo were traveling very fast until 924 of the 967 km, when they were in a good eighth place. Shortly before reaching the finish line, they had a front-end accident. Fortunately, the event went smoothly for everyone involved, but the required repair time set the pair back in the overall standings by almost two and a half hours.
Perhaps the most difficult of all the special stages in the 2025 Dakar Rally got off to a good start for the South African-Northern German duo. The reunited Dakar winners from 2009 were in a seemingly safe eighth position with less than 100 kilometers to go. They were just 14 minutes behind two-day final winners Yazeed Al-Rajhi/Timo Gottschalk when a head-on crash involving Toyota team-mates Saood Variawa/François Cazalet made a long break for repairs necessary. Both teams had missed turns in the dust. Variawa/Cazalet, which had already turned back, came towards de Villiers/von Zitzewitz and a head-on crash was again inevitable in the raised dust. All those involved remained uninjured after the accident. While unfortunately de Villiers/von Zitzewitz were able to complete their repair work quickly, the damage suffered by Variawa/Cazalet was much greater.
The 48-hour stage, with its crossings, was an important part of the rally, accounting for almost a fifth of the kilometer of the Dakar test. In total, about half of the route was run on sandy ground. In the beginning the route was characterized by hilly rocky terrain, slow tracks, before fast sandy slopes were followed. Navigation for this was very challenging. Most of the traffic continued between the big bumps and the remote parts of the road. The second day started with very fast descents, which eventually turned into a 15 km wide white sand mountain belt with white sand mountains. At the end the path followed the sandy, dry rivers back to Bisha.
“It was a very difficult stage for these two days, but it really went well for us so far,” said the 56-year-old von Zitzewitz. “Unfortunately, we had a bad accident with our teammates Saood Variawa and François Cazalet shortly before the finish. unfortunately we couldn’t avoid it again. Luckily nothing else happened and everyone is fine so far. It’s a shame, but the meeting is still long and a lot is still possible.”
