You must be insane to be a rally driver?
A season racing a Toyota GR Yaris for TGRSA has taken Mark Jones from the relative safety of tar to the farm roads of the Swartland Rally — and taught him exactly what separates rally driving from everything else in motorsport.
The pinnacle, and its opposit
Formula 1 is considered the pinnacle of motorsport. It attracts the biggest crowds. The flashy celebs. And the drivers are amongst the fastest rockstars on the planet. But racing flat out mere millimetres away from disaster is not for the faint hearted. There is no run-off in rally. There are no second chances. The road is unforgiving, and the terrain hostile. Step out of line once and your rally ends there and then with a mangled car.
Jumping in without a second thought
So, when I got the call to join Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa for the 2026 National Rally Championship in a Toyota GR Yaris, I jumped at the opportunity without putting too much thought into what was being asked of me.
Having spent several years as an amateur racing driver, including two seasons in the Toyota GR Cup, which is a track-based race series featuring identical cars, I figured, how hard can this be?
A false sense of security on tar
The first round of the season became an all-tar affair after the original opening rally was cancelled due to an outbreak of foot and mouth disease.
Whilst everything was a bit different to track racing, the feeling of tar under me lulled me into a false sense of security.
When the penny dropped
The second rally of the year was the Swartland Rally in the Western Cape. And this was a proper farm road meets gravel rally. And that's when the penny dropped. This was no longer tar, and I was way out of my comfort zone.
I will never forget the start. It was a long flat-out downhill section that had a farm fence on my right and soft recently farmed ground on my left. The fence wants to rip the car open, and the soft ground wants to dig the car in and roll it.
“My co-driver is shouting through the comms system — that feels like it’s wired directly into your brain — that this is flat. But every part of my body and soul is screaming self-preservation.”
Mark Jones · Swartland Rally, Round 2, 2026 SANRC
