Video: Dakar Rally champion let loose on Goodwood rally stage

26th June 2022

Seán Ward

On the Forest Rally Stage at the 2022 Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard, there are drivers going for speed and there are those going for style. Nasser Al-Attiyah is going for both, and he’s doing it in the car in which he won this year’s Dakar Rally. Welcome, everyone, to the Toyota GR DKR Hilux T1+.

Nasser Al-Attiyah knows a thing or two about the Dakar Rally. He won it with Volkswagen in 2011, with Mini in 2015 and with Toyota in 2019 and 2022 in this very car, with five second place finishes and one third place dotted around those victories. He’s a quick guy, then, which explains why he was so comfortable throwing the Hilux around the Forest Rally Stage.

The 3.5-litre, twin-turbo V6 engine in the Hilux produces 415PS (305kW) and 650Nm (481lb ft) of torque, enough to send this big, off-road monster around our stage with absolute ease. But there’s way more to this car than just the power and torque, because there are humungous 37-inch tyres (Al-Attiyah does his very best to turn these into smoke at one point) and more wheel travel than you can believe possible, which combined mean the Hilux can tackle jumps and bumps that many rally cars would have to ease off for. What a beast of a machine, and what a show. We just feel sorry for the metal barrel that gave its life for the making of this video.