Red Bull KTM’s Daniel Sanders was the overall winner at the South African Safari Rally, held May 21-25. It was his third consecutive win in the 2025 FIM World Rally-Raid Championship, with victories in the 2025 Dakar and Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge rallies.
Sanders won the Prologue and stages two, three and four of the five stages and clinched the overall win by nearly nine minutes. His teammate, Luciano Benavides, was second overall and Honda’s Ricky Brabec third.
“What a start to the season; I couldn’t have asked for anything better,” said Sanders. “Every day has been different, from the navigation to the terrain. Some of it has been crazy, but I’ve enjoyed my first time here. It feels great to put KTM on the top step again, and I’m excited to celebrate with the team. We’ve put in so much work over the past year to get to this point, so it’s great that it’s all paying off, and I’m having so much fun riding this bike. My goal is, of course, to win the championship, and I’m feeling good for Portugal and Morocco later in the year. I’ll give it my all as always!”
Brabec finished out the rally with a win in the final stage. “The day was good, and the whole rally was pretty fun, too,” he said after the final test. “There was a lot of grasstrack racing, corners, fences and quick navigation to totally throw you off, so overall I’m happy to be at the finish line. Today we made a good push; it was a kind of difficult stage, as it was only 111 kilometers, but it was full ISDE Six Days-style with the grass and the trees. We did a good job today. We pushed really big and really hard. We got some time back today, but unfortunately, we were just one minute shy of second on the podium.”
Honda’s Adrien Van Beveren and Skyler Howes rounded out the top five overall. CN
2025 South African Safari Rally Results
OVERALL (Top 5)
- Daniel Sanders (KTM) 13:27:44
- Luciano Benavides (KTM) +8:55
- Ricky Brabec (Hon) +10:00
- Adrien Van Beveren (Hon) +15:47
- Skyler Howes (Hon) +35:48
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