2025 South African Safari Rally results – Red Bull KTM’s Daniel Sanders has taken his fourth World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC) victory on the bounce with victory ahead of his Red Bull KTM teammate Luciano Benavides with Monster Energy Honda’s Ricky Brabec completing the podium.

Victory at the final race of the 2024 season in Morocco set Daniel Sanders up for a run of race wins no-one has matched. The biggy at the Dakar Rally followed in January followed by the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge.

Raced in very different conditions and terrain to those previous three, though not so different to the landscape the Australian is used to back home, the Red Bull KTM rider has today ticked off the inaugural South African Safari Rally on his relentless run.

Three stage wins during the event and second on the final day, sealed victory by nearly nine minutes from his teammate Luciano Benavides who had to fend off a determined Ricky Brabec on the HRC machine on the final fifth stage.

Brabec had to make sure of beating his own teammate, Adrien Van Beveren, on the final stage but instead put all the pressure on Benavides for the second placed position overall. Brabec clocked in just 42 seconds ahead of Sanders on stage five but took minutes out of Benavides. In the end the gap was just over one minute between the Argentine second and the American third.

Sanders becomes the all-time record holder in W2RC stage wins rankings with 19 career victories and extends his lead in the championship to 35 points ahead of round four, Rally Raid Portugal in September.

 “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 really 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!”

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Red Bull KTM Factory Racing also celebrated in Rally2 as Edgar Canet bounced back from injury in Abu Dhabi with a dominant class victory in South Africa by over 15 minutes from hero MotoSports’ Tobias Ebster and South African Michael Docherty in third 23 minutes adrift.

2025 South African Safari Rally Stage 5 results:

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Final classification after stage 5:

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Photo Credit: Edo Photo