Toyota Gazoo Racing to take on Dakar 2023 with three updated Hiluxes

The SA-based Toyota Gazoo Racing team will take on the 2023 Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia with a three-vehicle Hilux team early in January. The defending champions, Nasser Al-Attiyah and co-driver Mathieu Baumel, will return with newly crowned SA Rally-Raid Champion Giniel de Villiers and co-driver Dennis Murphy, as well as Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings.

The two-week event will mark the start of the World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC) 2023 season, with Al-Attiyah to take part in the whole season, with De Villiers and Lategan tackling the SA national championship for the rest of the year.

The Dakar is considered the world’s toughest rally raid and next year’s event has 5,000km of special stages.

For the 2023 season, the rules have been altered to close up the field and make competition even tougher. To better take on rivals such as the X-Raid Minis and Audi RS Q e-tron hybrids, the racing Hilux T1+ has been updated to improve its durability and reliability with reinforced differentials and suspension parts.

Dakar 2023 will start on December 31 on the North Western coast of Saudi Arabia, before travelling inland towards the city of Ha’il. From there, the route continues in a south-easterly direction, bisecting the feared Empty Quarter, before finally swinging northwards towards the finish at Dammam, on January 15 2023.