Concussion forces Saood Variawa to miss Rallye du Maroc

Saood Variawa will have to skip the Rallye du Maroc due to a concussion he sustained in an accident while preparing for the Phakisa 400.

Variawa had been riding with Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa team-mate Giniel de Villiers when their Toyota Hilux IMT EVO crashed in shakedown. De Villiers only sustained minor injuries and went on to finish third in the Phakisa 400 in his own Hilux, while Variawa’s injury and his truck’s damage kept him on the sidelines. Held at Phakisa Freeway, the race was the second-to-last round of the South African Rally-Raid Championship where Variawa was seventh in the standings going in.

The concussion will also prevent Variawa from competing in this weekend’s South African Touring Car Championship round at Killarney Raceway. He sits fifth in points with two races to go.

“Unfortunately I will not take part in this weekend’s SATC Race meeting as well as Rallye Du Maroc which is the final round of the World Rally Raid Championship,” reads a post from Variawa on Wednesday. “Last week Thursday I was sitting as passenger with @therealginiel and unfortunately we had an incident in shakedown. I’m thankful that we both got out of the car with minor injuries, however I have been booked off for 20 days due to a concussion!”

Variawa, who made his cross-country rally début at the 2023 TGR 1000 Desert Race, was signed up to run the 2024 World Rally-Raid Championship for TGRSA. He finished sixteenth in the Dakar Rally to begin the season followed by a sixth in the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge. The BP Ultimate Rally-Raid in April, his most recent start in the series, ended after he opted to withdraw following Stage #4 due to a myriad of speeding penalties that took him out of contention while also protecting his Hilux for the SARRC.

He did not enter the Desafío Ruta 40 in June as it was before the SARRC’s TGRSA Safari 1000.

While he won’t be able to close out the W2RC season as the Rallye du Maroc is on 6–11 October, Variawa expects to be back in time for SARRC’s finale in Bronkhorstspruit on 8/9 November. Sandwiched between them and on a tighter schedule, the SATC calendar wraps up at Zwartkops Raceway on 18/19 November.