Toyota South Africa Motors (TSAM) was “happy” with what its sponsorship of the Toyota Imperial South Africa Dakar team had achieved over the last few years, said TSAM president and CEO Dr Johan van Zyl on Monday.

Welcoming back the team that on the weekend clinched second place in the 2015 Dakar, Van Zyl said in Ekurhuleni that TSAM was evaluating the merits of continuing its sponsorship of the team.

TSAM in 2012 agreed to sponsor the team for three Dakar races.

The Toyota Imperial South Africa Dakar team currently includes the primary racing partnership of South Africa’s Giniel de Villiers and his German navigator Dirk von Zitzewitz, with Leeroy Poulter and Rob Howie making up the second pairing. The team principal is Glyn Hall.

De Villiers and Von Zitzewitz had achieved a second, fourth and now again a second place over the last three years.

Poulter and Howie took sixteenth place in this year’s race.

Van Zyl said TSAM’s marketing team would evaluate the sponsorship deal, and then make its recommendations on whether to continue supporting the team. It was also important for TSAM to talk to other sponsors as the company evaluated its options.

He said TSAM would make a decision on the matter within the “next month or two”.

Hall noted that the team had already started to discuss improvements to the vehicles for the next Dakar on the second-last day of this year’s race, mulling what tweaks the Hiluxes would require for the 2016 event.

“This is a living machine and you need a vision of what you want to [achieve].”

Changes to race regulations this year did not make as big a difference in levelling the playing field as Hall had hoped for. However, the Hilux was faster than last year, he noted.

New regulations, implemented for the 2015 Dakar, dropped the minimum weight requirement for normally aspirated petrol cars, such as the Hilux used by the South African team, by 60 kg, for example.

Diesel cars, the podium winners in the 2014 and 2015 race, had to increase their weight by 48 kg for the 2015 race.

The regulations for 2015 also allowed Hall and his team a slightly larger air intake restrictor.

Restrictors are designed to limit the amount of air going into an engine, and can be used to equalise the performance of different types of engines.

De Villiers said he and Von Zitzewitz were able to challenge for the race lead for eight days, with the Hilux offering speed and reliability, aided by the new regulations.

“We could fight Nasser up to day nine, but then lost 20 minutes trying to overtake him.

“You need to be perfect to win this race. One day we weren’t, and that cost us the race.”

De Villiers finished the 2015 Dakar 35:34 minutes behind Qatari driver Nasser Al-Attiyah (Mini).

He said Al-Attiyah ran a race as close to perfect as he had ever seen, probably losing only four minutes during the event.

The 2015 Dakar was a 14-day cross-country event, held in South America, covering 4 752 race kilometres. The race was split by a rest day at the halfway mark.

It is officially the longest motorsport event in the world, by distance and time.