“Nowadays, it’s every 1% that counts”
En bref
- Not only is he a very competitive driver, he’s also one of the main figures behind the Century Racing project. As an engineer, Brian Baragwanath has spent years designing and building the best possible buggies for the Dakar, W2RC and the South-African cross-country series.
- He however first showed up at the Dakar on a far smaller vehicle: a quad. Despite failing to make it to the finish in 2015, the South African went on to win two stages and finished third overall a year later.
- Born in Polokwane, north of South Africa, the tall father of two switched to cars and it was only natural that he would be behind the steering wheel of one of his Century babies. Since his car debut in 2021, he has finished all the Dakar rallies he started but one even taking his CR6 to 14th spot in 2022.
- 2024 was a turning point for Baragwanath with the launch of the brand new CR7 T1+ four-wheel drive car. Quite a challenge for a brand that was specialized in two-wheel drive buggies. The South-African who used the Dakar as an extreme test-drive struggled with the expected reliability issues but still managed to finish second of a stage.
- Alongside co-driver Leonard Cremer, he returns after the disappointment of being disqualified of last year’s Dakar after a post-race fuel test revealed an oxygen content violation in their fuel.
- After competing in three rounds of the W2RC championship, Brian will be driving a brand-new Century for his 8th Dakar with the secret hope to maybe one day attract a major manufacturer.
Ambition
B.B.: “We’ve been busy preparing the cars for the Dakar, testing a few things and making sure we’re as quick as possible. We had a pretty good year racing. We focused on W2RC races mores than any other race. We were happy with our pace at Safari Rally. We were able to run at the front but that’s in our home terrain. We unfortunately blew our engine due to a silly little thing that we now fixed. In Morocco, I went with an old car just to gain experience and get time in the dunes and the open terrain. Also, we didn’t want to risk damaging the car and get our practice in.
Coming forward into Dakar, we’ve constantly been developing and changing some small things. We changed chassis geometry on the newer model. Nowadays, it’s every 1% that counts. We try and change every 1% whether it’s comfort in the car, whether it's aerodynamics, a little bit on the suspension, a little bit on the engine. We have to keep hunting on anything that can improve our performance.
I’m super happy to be back again and to still be in it. This is the fastest that I’ve ever been but the whole field is super competitive at the moment. We will be looking to give our outmost best and see what results can come of that but I’m pretty confident that we should be able to be in the Top 10 again. Besides our fuel issue from last January, we’re looking forward to coming back for a new challenge.
The field is the most competitive we’ve ever seen with Dacia, with Toyota, with Ford: so many factory cars in contention with us. We’re one of the last privateer teams to be able to hang it out with the manufacturers so we’re super proud of that. In the last two years, we’ve built and sold almost 24 cars. For us, as a small company from South-Africa, that’s a great achievement. For us in the industry, that’s our bread and butter. What wins on Sunday sells on Monday. We haven’t got the backing of a manufacturer yet but we’re hoping we’ll get some soon that can give the extra edge, the extra push to have more members in the team, more resources, more support. For now, we run what we need to and we make sure that the car does the work on the track and that’s always been our success in the past. We focus on the essentials with the budget that we have.”
