Toyota Gazoo Racing W2RC’s Seth Quintero and Andrew Short secured a nail-biting victory on the final stage of the gruelling five-day Desafío Ruta 40 in northwest Argentina on Friday.
Despite two punctures in the last stage, the American pushed hard to the finish and managed to pull back his lost time to secure a vital maiden overall victory in the FIA World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC) by the margin of 1min 55sec. The success was Toyota’s sixth in the 13-year history of the event.
South African team-mates Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings topped the times on the final San Juan loop stage to edge ahead of Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah and Fabian Lurquin and give Toyota a hard-earned 1-2 finish. The result enabled the team to close the gap on the Dacia Sandriders Team in the W2RC Manufacturers’ Championship.
Quintero retains third in the W2RC Drivers’ Championship. He said: « It was an amazing week. Worked my butt off all week long and finally got the win for all the guys that have been supporting me for so long. To get second in Portugal and first here and now we’re really in the fight for the championship. We got two flats today, so I just drove as hard as I could the whole way home and came away with the win. »
A three-minute time penalty for a late check-in on day four proved very costly for Lategan. The runner-up said: « A bitter-sweet ending for us. We finished second but congratulations to Seth and Andrew for winning it. It’s good having a 1-2 for Toyota. The car was performing really well and we gave a big push today to try and get back into the lead. It wasn’t meant to be. We were quickest on the road but the three-minute penalty from yesterday really cost us in the end. That’s how it goes sometimes. »
Overdrive Racing’s Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk suffered early delays but a fight back through the field saw the Saudi finish sixth overall and pick up valuable points towards the W2RC Manufacturers’ Championship.
The Chilean duo of privateer Hernán Garcés and his navigator Juan Pablo Latrach delivered another solid performance in an Overdrive Racing Toyota to confirm 14th place.
Former Dakar motorcycle winner Kevin Benavides teamed up with Overdrive Racing for the first time and ran a Toyota with navigator Lisandro Sisterna. The Argentine was third quickest on day two and survived a broken damper and a small mistake in the dust on stage four. He finished 16th.
Japan’s Akira Miura and his Spanish navigator Armand Monleón suffered time consuming technical issues on stage four that cost them 12hrs 50min in time penalties and pushed them down the classification. Miura retired on the final day.
A demanding opening loop stage of 339.42km saw Quintero and Lategan reach the finish in fourth and sixth positions. Benavides slotted into 15th, Miura held 17th, Garcés was 23rd but Al-Rajhi ceded over half an hour to the stage winner and slipped back to 28th after an incident with a tree. Dust cost several drivers’ valuable time.
Quintero said: « Super tricky day. It was definitely not easy being out front. We caught the guys very early, at about 120km. We ended up passing Loeb and then followed Nasser into a mistake. I think we needed this stage to dictate how the rally will go. »
Benavides enjoyed his first experience with the Toyota. « We passed some cars to refuelling and then we had a puncture, changed it and then caught some cars. We had another puncture and it was a little nervy because I didn’t have any more spare tyres. We had a small puncture 90km from the end and had to stop and put some air in to keep the pressure. We did this again and again and finished like this. »
The second stage ran from San Juan to San Rafael and only included a short competitive section of 127.43km. It was a strong day for Overdrive Racing with Benavides shadowing stage winner Al-Attiyah to the finish in second place and Quintero and Lategan finishing sixth an eighth. A 10-second speeding penalty later pushed Benavides down to third on the day.
The result lifted Quintero into second overall behind João Ferreira with Lategan in fourth and Benavides climbing into 10th. Miura held 17th but Al-Rajhi stopped briefly after 16km and dropped several minutes. The Saudi was two places behind Garcés in 24th.
Lategan said: « It was really tight and twisty in the trees in the beginning and difficult to drive. It was sandy at the end. »
Stage three ran for 407.73km. The longest special of the rally looped around San Rafael and included a tricky section through the dunes of Nihuil. On his first visit to the event, Lategan managed to claim an important stage win by 1min 36sec and that gave the South African an outright lead over team-mate Seth Quintero of just 1min 39sec. The American was third in the stage after surviving a puncture and borrowing a damper off Lategan on the transfer section.
Lategan said: « The first two days didn’t go to plan but this stage was really nice. It was a really difficult stage, some terrible dunes at the beginning and really rough and sandy tracks. We caught the cars in front and were stuck in the dust for a lot of the day. We started in the sand and ended right up in the mountains between snow and ice. Snow was next to the road, so crazy to have this contrast in one stage! »
Al-Rajhi and Miura came home in seventh and 11th with the Saudi climbing to 11th overall behind his Japanese colleague. Garcés held 23rd but Benavides lost time with a broken rear damper.
The penultimate stage ran for 305.70km between San Rafael and a return to San Juan with altitudes over 3,000 metres. A puncture and fifth place for Quintero enabled the American to head into the final night halt with a seven-second overall lead. Lategan was eighth after punctures and slipped to third overall, while Al-Rajhi and Garcés climbed to ninth and 16th.
Technical issues cost Miura a stage finish and hefty time penalties followed as a result, while Benavides lost time in dust and held 20th.
The final stage looped through mountainous terrain at altitude for 339.71km to the north of San Juan and the competition was split by a lengthy neutralisation section. Quintero stopped briefly early on with tyre issues but Lategan took up the reins and was the quickest at the 131km checkpoint.
The South African held on to earn a second stage win of the week and that gave him second in the general classification. But Quintero did enough to seal a famous victory for Toyota by just 1min 55sec. Lategan had incurred a time penalty of three minutes the previous evening for a late check-in and that ultimately proved very expensive.
The FIA World Rally-Raid Championship resumes with the Rally of Morocco on September 28th-October 3rd.
2026 Desafío Ruta 40 – result:
1. Seth Quintero (USA)/Andrew Short (USA) Toyota Hilux GR, 15hr 55min 38sec
2. Henk Lategan (RSA)/Brett Cummings (RSA) Toyota Hilux GR, 15hr 57min 33sec
3. Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah (QAT)/Fabian Lurquin (BEL) Dacia Sandrider, 15hr 58min 04sec
4. Sébastien Loeb (FRA)/Edouard Boulanger (FRA) Dacia Sandrider, 15hr 59min 32sec
5. Saood Variawa (RSA)/François Cazalet (FRA) Toyota Hilux IMT Evo, 16hr 27min 42sec
6. Yazeed Al-Rajhi (KSA)/Timo Gottschalk (GER) Toyota Hilux GR, 16hr 47min 29sec
7. Marcelo Gastaldi (BRA)/Carlos Sachs (BRA) Toyota Hilux IMT Evo, 16hr 50min 23sec*
8. Joan Roma (ESP)/Alex Haro (ESP) Ford Raptor, 16hr 56min 25sec
9. Sebastián Halpern (ARG)/Eduardo Pulenta (ARG) X-Raid Mini JCW Rally 3.0i, 17hr 01min 26sec*
10. Matthias Walkner (AUT)/Pablo Moreno (ESP) Taurus T3 Max, 17hr 13min 12sec*
14. Hernán Garcés (CHI)/Juan Pablo Latrach (CHI) Toyota Hilux GR, 17hr 49min 45sec
16. Kevin Benavides (ARG)/Lisandro Sisterna (ARG) Toyota Hilux GR, 18hr 10min 41sec*
Akira Miura (JPN)/Armand Monleón (ESP) Toyota Hilux GR, DNF
*denotes not registered for W2RC