Nissan's triumph did not come cheap though as they lost their star driver Hannes Grobbler in the bush, when his Navara developed mechanical problems. This saw the defending champion and four-time winner crashing out of the race.
On Saturday, the Toyota team had established itself as the favourites after doing well in the first 500km and the time trials. On Sunday morning, the race announcer updated spectators at the Game City finishing point about Toyota's exploits and hence it was a shock when Nissan won. By then, the Toyota team was occupying the top four positions and the leading Nissan speedster Grobbler was out of the race. So sure was the announcer about Toyota's chances of winning that she was soon seen distributing Toyota branded flags to hundreds of youngsters gathered at the scene.
But things soon changed. Just when everyone was preparing to cheer Toyota, a red and white Navara of Vos and Leeke came roaring to the finishing ramp with no challenger in sight. It was a whole 10 minutes before the next car - another Nissan driven by Mark Corbett and Rudy Blazer followed the victorious to the ramp. Leeke acknowledged that Toyota gave them a hard time in the desert but Nissan's victory was all down to a good strategy. "They bumped on trees, or something. I don't know what happened to them. But we had to use this (he said pointing to his brains). We had to make them commit mistakes. We put pressure on them.
"They were forced to go fast, and when you go fast in the desert, you make mistakes," said the calm veteran.
The former navigator for Grobbler revealed that he has not been competing in races since 2004. He said he was only called out of retirement for the Botswana leg of the off road racing. "I am retired. I retired long time ago, in 2004.
They called me to come and compete in this race, just this Botswana leg, after this I am going back to retirement. Look at my hair. I am old," he said jokingly. When asked why he does well in the event, he said it might be because he loves Botswana or the desert.
On Friday, it was a father and son affair for Toyota as Hugo and Jaap de Bruyn caused a stir by convincingly winning the prologue in the Micaren Toyota Hilux. Three Castrol Toyota Hilux crews in Mark Cronj and Chris Birkin (4), Chris Visser and Japie Badenhorst (5) and Bevan Bertholdt and Robin Houghton (6) were all in the top ten on Friday, giving hope that Toyota would got all the way this time around.
On Saturday, the surprise prologue winners (Hugo and Jaap de Bruyn), spent the entire day fending off challenges from last year's winners, Grobbler and Francois Jordaan in the Nissan Navara. The Nissan were in turn under pressure from third-placed Cronj and Birkin and Vos and Leeke in the second Navara.
