Henk Lategan finally wins TGRSA Safari 1000, Wors Prinsloo clinches Road to Dakar

After seven tries, Henk Lategan is finally a winner of the South African Rally-Raid Championship‘s longest race as he held off Lance Woolridge to win the TGRSA Safari 1000.

Lategan and his Toyota Hilux were the fastest early on while Woolridge’s Ford Ranger gave chase. The latter was further set back by a flat tyre during the first stage, which he speculated may have contributed to him not being able to close in on Lategan during the third and final day. By the end, Lategan kept Woolridge at bay by over five and a half minutes.

“We lost a bit of time on Friday in the prologue and then on the first loop with the puncture, which probably cost us the win,” Woolridge explained. “We had a clean run on Saturday, and today we pushed hard and caught up to Henk and Brett early on the first loop, but we just couldn’t pass them in the dust, so we ultimately had to settle for second place. It was an enjoyable race, and the car was faultless.”

Since missing the Dakar Rally in January to a shoulder dislocation, Lategan has regained his footing and hit his stride. Despite retiring from the SARRC season-opening Nkomazi 400 in April, he quickly rebounded by winning the Vryheid 400 in May followed by the victory in Waterberg.

“It feels awesome to have this one. It feels like a really, really tough desert race,” Lategan commented. “Usually, they’re quite open and fast and it goes by quite quickly. This one was slow and tight and technical and it took forever to get through.

“We knew that yesterday and day one were the two days we could actually push a little bit. It was a little bit more open looking at the maps and listening to the guys that drove here last year. We knew today would be extremely difficult to overtake in the dust. I think if you chat to Lance, he’ll be quite frustrated from sitting in our dust most of the day, but that’s how it is.”

Woolridge’s brother Gareth Woolridge, the defending SARRC marathon race winner, suffered a flat tyre on Friday that relegated him to twenty-seventh. Trouble continued Saturday with a broken rear driveshaft and electronic sensor issues which further sank him. He was second quickest on Sunday to salvage a fourth overall.

Brian Baragwanath joined Lategan and Woolridge on the podium in his Century CR7. T1+ cars swept the top five.

Wors Prinsloo, a privateer racing a Ford Ranger T1+ from Neil Woolridge Motorsport, held off Gerhard Heinlein to win the Road to Dakar and earn himself free registration for the 2025 or 2026 Dakar Rally. The Safari 1000 is of two non-World Rally-Raid Championship rounds that are on the RtD. Jayden Els, the event’s 2024 RtD winner, was second fastest in qualifying before fuel pressure issues and an alternator failure over the next two days forced him to bow out.

Els was one of eleven retirements. Lategan’s Toyota Gazoo Racing team-mate Saood Variawa struggled with a broken rear differential before hitting a ditch that broke three dampers the next day. Red-Lined Motorsport‘s new REVO+ GT-R, a T1+ model that uses an engine from the Nissan R35 GT-R, went a disappointing zero-for-three for finishers. Ian Mostert exited following a rollover, leaving Geoff Minnitt and Puck Klaassen as the only side-by-side vehicles to complete the race; Klaassen’s Can-Am Maverick R, which has seen action at the regional level but is not yet homologated by the FIA for international competition, did not earn points.

The Safari 1000 is SARRC’s audition to earn a date on the W2RC in 2025. New for 2024, it replaced the TGR 1000 Desert Race in Botswana; Waterberg previously hosted the Waterberg 400 in 2023.

FIA overall results