Henk is at the top of his game
Like the thousands of sportsmen and women around the world, Lategan can’t wait for the 2020 season to resume.
Toyota Gazoo Racing SA Team member Henk Lategan (25) of Midstream Estate in Olifantsfontein is the youngest driver in the SA Cross Country Series (SACCS) to have won the prestigious 2019 Overall Production Vehicle and Class FIA championships in only his third year of national cross-country racing.
Lategan competed in his first regional rally with his father, Hein, at the age of 15.
“My passion has always been rallying, and one of my motorsport heroes is nine-time World Rally Champion (WRC) Sebastien Loeb. In 2015, I was extremely privileged to compete in the Monte Carlo Rally where Loeb made a rare appearance having retired from WRC at the end of the 2012 season,” Lategan said.
During the next five years, Lategan progressed through the ranks of National Championship Rallying with navigator Barry White, competing in the S1400 and S2000 Challenges, as well as the premier S2000 class for modified, normally aspirated, four-wheel drive cars with an engine capacity not exceeding two litres.
In 2013, the versatile South African teenage rally driver was selected as a wild card for the elite Young Driver Excellence Academy, run by the FIA, the world governing body of motorsport.
In the same year, he was also elected to the Sasol VW Rally team alongside experienced teammates and motorsport greats Enzo Kuun and Hergen Fekken. In the latter part of his Sasol VW Rally career, his teammates included the late Gugu Zulu and Thilo Himmel. When VW withdrew from rallying at the end of 2015, Lategan took a sabbatical from South African motorsport.
“Thanks to my dad’s dedication and my insatiable desire to enhance my race craft, I had the opportunity to compete in numerous WRC and international rally events in Austria, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, the UK and Monte Carlo,” Lategan said.
“I never thought I would become a cross-country racer, but when I was offered the opportunity to race a Class T Ford Ranger with Neil Woolridge Motorsport in 2017, I grabbed it with both hands. I was extremely proud to finish sixth in the Overall Production Vehicle standings and fourth in Class T, behind teammates Lance and Gareth Woolridge in year one.”
The year 2018 delivered a new challenge for Lategan when he joined the Toyota Gazoo Racing SA Team under the leadership of Glyn Hall. Lategan was paired with the multiple SA navigators’ champion Dennis Murphy. This partnership was cut short when Rob Howie, Giniel de Villiers’s navigator, sustained a back injury in the early stages of the 2018 Qatar Rally.
Barry White stepped into the breach alongside Lategan with the pair winning the 2018 FIA Class championship by one point from reigning champions De Villiers and Murphy.
The 2019 Overall and FIA Class victories, alongside navigator and previous Dakar motorcycle competitor Brett Cummings, was befitting for the vastly talented Lategan.
“Like the thousands of sportsmen and women around the world, I can’t wait for the 2020 season to resume. Although I have limited training facilities at home, I am staying focused on my physical and mental fitness,” Lategan said.
