Sanders Wins South
African Safari Rally
R
ed 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 champion
-
ship, and I'm feeling good for Portugal and Moroc-
co 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 dif
-
ficult 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
OVERALL (Top 5)
1. Daniel Sanders (KTM) 13:27:44
2. Luciano Benavides (KTM) +8:55
3. Ricky Brabec (Hon) +10:00
4. Adrien Van Beveren (Hon) +15:47
5. Skyler Howes (Hon) +35:48
WIND
IN THE
P52
Daniel Sanders is so far
undefeated in this year's FIM
World Rally-Raid Championship.
His latest win came at the
South African Safari Rally.
Ricky Brabec on the final stage
en route to third overall.
