The big winner at #Dakar2020 was not Carlos Sainz, but a Frenchman powered by a South African-built buggy.
Without the big factory team budgets for marketing and PR, sometimes the truly epic achievements of smaller teams in motorsport get overlooked.
An important story
One of the most important stories from this year’s Dakar wasn’t former Formula 1 World Champion Fernando Alonso’s excellent showing in his first rally. Nor was it Nasser Al-Attiyah's fight for an overall victory that saw him narrowly miss a back-to-back win by a heartbreaking 6min and 21 seconds.
The most important story this year is that of undoubtedly the most beautiful vehicle in the Rally, Midrand-based racecar manufacturer Century Racing’s CR6 buggy.
Image: Century Racing
The CR6, driven by privateer former biker Mathieu Serradori, not only won Stage 8 but ended up eighth overall in the car class and first overall in the T1.3 class (Petrol 2 Wheel Drive Vehicles).
READ: Mathieu Serradori claims victory on #Dakar2020 Stage 8
But why is it important though?
It’s important simply because Century’s primary goal is to design and build the world’s best racing buggy in South Africa, for customers both locally and, more importantly, abroad.
With this epic Dakar performance in the bag, the company will no doubt see a flurry of orders come through. The strong result at the recently concluded Dakar rally firmly cements South African constructors as world-class players.
Image: Century Racing