Toyota's off-road rally programme has its roots in South African motorsport, where local company Hallspeed built and prepared the vehicles. The operation grew in stature through the 2010s as results improved and the global Gazoo Racing umbrella expanded to absorb national programmes worldwide. When the Dakar Rally relocated from South America to Saudi Arabia in 2020, TGR South Africa's entry gained significantly more direct support from Japan, reflecting Toyota's strategic ambition in the discipline.
The team's breakthrough moment came at the 2019 Dakar Rally when Nasser Al-Attiyah and co-driver Mathieu Baumel took overall victory in the car class, ending years of near misses and establishing Toyota as a credible winner at the highest level of rally raid. Al-Attiyah, the Qatari driver who became the face of Toyota's Dakar ambitions, had previously competed for other manufacturers before building a long-term relationship with the South African operation.
From 2020, with the event now hosted entirely in Saudi Arabia, TGR's Dakar programme flourished. The team secured further overall victories in 2022 and 2023, cementing Toyota as one of the dominant forces in the car category. The GR DKR Hilux T1+ proved a highly competitive package, combining South African engineering expertise with Japanese backing.
When the FIA established the World Rally-Raid Championship in 2022, TGR South Africa was well positioned to contend for the inaugural title. The team won the manufacturers' championship in its first year of the series in 2022, underlining the strength of the programme beyond the Dakar Rally itself. Al-Attiyah also secured multiple drivers' titles in the championship.
Nasser Al-Attiyah has been the primary driver of the team's Dakar ambitions, accumulating multiple overall Dakar victories across his career and becoming one of the most decorated drivers in the event's modern era. The team also ran additional entries for other competitors, including Lithuanian driver Benediktas Vanagas and Estonian co-driver Kuldar Sikk, who compete internationally under the Toyota Gazoo Racing Baltics banner with support from the local Toyota dealer.
The GR DKR Hilux T1+ represents the culmination of years of development by Hallspeed in Johannesburg. It is built to FIA T1 regulations for four-wheel-drive vehicles and uses a turbocharged internal combustion engine. The truck's development draws on insights from the harsh conditions of South African off-road racing and the extreme demands of the Arabian desert stages that now define the Dakar Rally.
Toyota Gazoo Racing's Dakar programme stands as one of the few factory-backed rally-raid operations run entirely out of Africa, and its consistent success has demonstrated the viability of a decentralised motorsport programme under a global manufacturer umbrella. The team's multiple Dakar victories and World Rally-Raid Championship titles have reinforced Toyota's global motorsport credentials alongside its parallel successes in the World Rally Championship and World Endurance Championship.