“My hopes for the Dakar to come? We’re going to push”
CREW FACTS…
S.V.
- There’s no time to wait. At only 18 years of age, Saood Variawa took on his very first Dakar last January. The South African did it in style too as he reached the finish line in 17th position, even managing to capture 5th spot on stage 11.
- In the Variawa family racing runs in the veins. His grandfather Abdul started competing in the 90s and his dad Shameer was a Dakar competitor in 2019 back in Peru. At the time, Saood had come to visit and was already astonished by the size of the event.
- Since then, Shameer has become the head of the Toyota Gazoo Racing team and naturally chose his son for one of his Hilux pickups.
- The young man’s journey to the Dakar actually started on circuits. He indeed first started by karting reaching the highest of FIA championships. Then came touring cars and it wasn’t before 2022 that he started shifting to off-road rallies.
- Saood who also enjoys gaming as well as the wildlife carried on his apprenticeship during this 2024 season, competing at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge and throughout the South African Rally-Raid championship. He also enjoyed a full season on circuits across South-Africa in the touring car championship.
- At his side, the Johannesburg native will again be counting on the precious help of Frenchman François Cazalet who was chosen for his experience to teach young Saood the specifities of off-road racing.
F.C.
- Working as a farmer, François Cazalet had to change his lifestyle when he was contacted by the Variawa family to become Saood’s co-driver on a long-term basis and teach him the skills, techniques and secrets of cross-country rallying.
- The Frenchman who started on the Dakar back in 2022 with USA’s Blade Hildebrand has specialized in mentoring young drivers. Part of the Red Bull Off-road Junior team, he then went on to compete with Cristina Gutierrez (3rd in 2022) and Gregoire de Mévius (3rd in 2023).
- After his experiences in SSVs, he moved up to the Ultimate Class last year with Variawa and reached the finish of the Dakar in a very promising 17th position.
- The 39-year-old from Pau who is a fomer biker and has a passion for cycling, continues his journey with young Saood and after starting the season in W2RC and competing in the entire South African championship will hope to better their performance on the Dakar.
AMBITION 2025
S.V.: “We had a pretty tough and long season. I was busy doing three championships: the World Rally-raid Championship, the South African Rally-raid championship as well as my local Touring Car championship. Looking back to the last Dakar, the experience I gained was really massive with all those thousands of kilometres of racing and the long stages. It helped me a lot as a driver and helped me understand the race. We really showed our results towards the end of the Dakar in the second week. That was quite good.
We’re going to push. I want to aim for at least a Top 10 finish and feature in the top 3 of some of the stages if possible. I know we have the pace now. Racing locally, we are up there with the big guys. We want to gain more experience and continue pushing towards finishing as well and get another finish under my belt.”
F.C.: “On the last Dakar we showed up with an ambitious objective having the youngest driver of the field who had only done 3 rallies before and was a pure product of circuit racing. The mission was to get to the finish, and it was accomplished and sometimes more than accomplished with some Top 5 finishes on stages. Saood lived the full adventure, and it was one of my hardest Dakar rallies.
We count on each other. I had a taste of competing with some great drivers and Saood is a very pleasant surprise. We’re going in the right way. We started the W2RC season In Abu Dhabi where we were consistent and efficient. In Portugal we unfortunately had to retire for mechanical reasons. And then we focused on the South-African championship with some highs and lows due to the fact that we were testing new components on the car. We were in test mode for 2025 and we learned a lot.
Now on the next Dakar, the goal is to reach the Top 10. It’s an ambitious mission and we shouldn’t cut any corners. The goal is to keep a cold head. I mean, if all the Dakar winners in cars have grey hair, it’s for a reason. It takes time to win. So we shouldn’t be too greedy and not too shy neither.”
