2025 South African Safari Rally route

February 4, 2025

The World Rally-Raid Championship will visit South Africa for the first time with the inaugural South African Safari Rally in May. In total, the race will stretch 2,759 kilometers with 1,403 in timed sections.

Sun City Resort, a hotel and casino located near Pilanesberg National Park, will serve as the race’s main bivouac. The Prologue on May 19 will start roughly 30 kilometers outside the resort’s premises with a forest loop before the rally sets out for Lichtenburg in Stage #1. The first stage heads through primarily agricultural land with sand tracks.

Stages #2 and #3 will be run under marathon conditions, the former taking competitors to Barberspan on a 203-kilometer liaison stage. Stella, a cattle farming town, hosts the overnight bivouac ahead of the third leg before heading to Skilpadshek by the border with Botswana. These sections are primarily on open savannas with wide tracks.

Stage #4 is the longest with a 247-km road section to the 280-km SS, then another 171 km back to Sun City for a 498-km day. The leg is more tight and rocky as it runs through mountains.

The final stage is another loop of Sun City on hard-packed cotton soil. Immediate after its conclusion, the FIA classes will run a ten-kilometer Power Selective Section with river crossings and dirt tracks. New for 2025 and based on the Power Stage in traditional rally, the Power SS winner will earn three bonus points, runner-up gets two, and third gets one.

48 percent of the route is on dirt track while gravel roads make up 27%, stony courses are 15%, and sand comprises the remaining 10%.