South Africa’s Henk Lategan was forced to settle for second place overall as Saudi Arabia’s Yazeed Al-Rajji win the 2025 Dakar rally at his 11th attempt. The result completed a successful 1-2 finish for Toyota Racing in the Saudi Arabian desert.
With newcomers Ford and Dacia still finding their feet in cross-country rallying and last year’s winner Audi having pulled out of the competition, the 47th edition of Dakar was effectively an all-Toyota affair.
But while the Japanese manufacturer fielded five cars on a factory basis, it was privateer Al-Rajhi who took the spoils for Overdrive after two weeks of rallying.
For the longest time, Lategan had the edge over Al-Rajhi in the overall standings, with the South African capitalising on his consistency to maintain his lead over a rival who was arguably faster on pure pace.
Lategan appeared to have cemented his chances of victory after topping the eighth stage on Monday, but a navigation error at the start of the following test in Haradh handed the initiative to Al-Rajhi and threw the rally wide open.
The final margin between winner and runner-up after 52 hours racing was 3min 57sec, with third-placed Mattias Ekstrom, in a Fod, nearly 17 minutes behind Lategan.
The off-road endurance event, which moved to Saudi Arabia in 2020 after a decade in South America, was originally held between Paris and the Senegalese capital Dakar. It moved out of the Europe-to-Africa route format after the 2007 edition over security concerns.