The Toyota Blog

Fresh from a fine showing in the season-opening Total Rally in KwaZulu-Natal four weeks ago, Johnny Gemmell and Carolyn Swan (Toyota Auris) will head a strong Castrol Team Toyota challenge in the Sasol Rally in Mpumalanga on April 20 and 21.

Gemmell, who finished second behind the Ford Fiesta of Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton in KZN in March, is a two-time former winner of the Sasol Rally (in 2007 and 2009 with Peter Marsh) and will be hoping that he and Swan can score Toyota’s 102nd national championship victory.

The Castrol Team Toyota Hilux bakkies of Anthony Taylor/Chris Birkin and Duncan Vos/Rob Howie are prepared and tested to fly the Toyota flag in the second round of the Absa Off Road Championship, the Toyota Dealer 400, in Mpumalanga this weekend (April 13 and 14).

After a relatively disappointing opening round, when the two Castrol Toyotas finished fifth and 10th in the RFS Magalies 400 in Gauteng, the Toyota Motorsport team has been hard at it over the past five weeks to ensure that the two Hilux crews have the best possible equipment to tackle what promises to be a challenging event.

A fighting second place in the season-opening Total Rally in KwaZulu-Natal by Toyota Motorsport’s Johnny Gemmell and Carolyn Swan (Castrol Team Toyota Auris) on Saturday was some consolation for the disappointment of losing the sister Auris of Leeroy Poulter and Elvene in a fire just four kilometres into the event’s opening stage on Friday.

The Toyota Motorsport team of Johnny Gemmell/Carolyn Swan and Leeroy Poulter/Elvene Coetzee will make history when they line up in their Castrol-backed Toyota Auris rally cars to contest the opening round of the 2012 South African Rally Championship this weekend (March 23 and 24).

Motor sport is a great leveller and there are days when there is more rough to take than smooth. Saturday was one of those days for Toyota Motorsport, with the Castrol Team Toyota Hilux double cabs of Duncan Vos/Rob Howie and Anthony Taylor/Chris Birkin finishing fifth and 10th respectively in the production vehicle category of the RFS Magalies 400 at Tarlton near Krugersdorp.

We asked the fans what question they would like to ask Giniel de Villiers, Dakar 2012 podium finisher. Here are some of the few he answered when we caught up with him in Johannesburg.

Toyota Blog: If you had a choice of past rally drivers who have given you inspiration, who would it be?

Dream finish to the Dakar 2012. Team Imperial Toyota concluded their maiden foray into the ultimate test of endurance with a 3rd place for Giniel de Villiers and Dirk von Zitzewitz in the number 301 Hilux, an 11th place for Duncan Vos and Rob Howie in the number 313 sister car, while the team Overdrive entered South African Hilux of Lucio Alvarez and Andy Graue finished 6th in the 2012 edition of the Dakar – Argentina, Chile, Peru.

What a boytjie ! Giniel de Villiers and Dirk von Zitzewitz led the last real stage of the 2012 Dakar until confusion at a waypoint caused them to slip back to a second place for the day, cementing their 3rd place overall. Dirk von Zitzewitz: “..we were on km 240 where there was supposed to be a waypoint, but it did not come up. We could see bike tracks to our left, the West and went looking for the waypoint in that direction. We saw a helicopter had landed there, at a big drop off that was not on the road book – because we weren't supposed to be there.

Peru provides toughest challenge. If anyone thought that the Atacama ended in Chile, they were proven wrong today, on day 13, stage 12 of the Dakar. Not long after the cars disappeared into the seaside dunes, the running order started to change tales of woe started to emerge from the dunes. Conditions were not what most people expected.

Giniel de Villiers: “These were the trickiest dunes we've had so far, anything could happen out there. They're not that big, but steep and tricky, very, very difficult.”

Time to keep it all together. With only three stages to go, all three the South African Hilux's are in the top ten, with Giniel in third place. Today's stage from Arica to Arequipa was another long, harsh trek through the Atacama, alternating between steep rocky climbs and the perils of fesh-fesh.

Giniel finished 4th, Duncan 9th and Lucio 10th, to not only finish inside the top ten, but to also keep all three vehicles in the top ten overall. As on previous days, the Imperial Toyota's ran like clockwork, making their music across the desert without any major mechanical trouble.