Friday, the longest day of the WRC Safari Rally Kenya, was brutal in every sense. Cars arrived back at the final service missing chunks of bodywork, bumpers were torn, slitters were missing but through it all, Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin landed up with a 7.7 second lead over Kalle Rovanperä and Jonne Halttunen, in a now familiar Safari Toyota Gazoo Racing one-two.
The day started with the longest stage of the rally, a nasty sinewy, tight, undulating, damp piece of Kenya but it didn’t stop Ott Tanak and Martin Järveoja from taking an immediate lead after blitzing the 31.4km stage by 2.1 seconds ahead of the reigning world champion Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe, giving Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team cause for hope to end their African drought.
Tanak went on to win three of the morning’s stages, heading into service with a handy, if not comfortable 24.4 second lead over Evans.
After the second stage of the afternoon loop, Tanak’s lead had almost doubled to 46.1 seconds before a driveshaft issue lost the i20 N pair 68 seconds over the 13km SS10, and the rally lead.
“It’s been a difficult day, and we’ve erred on the side of caution,” said Evans. “Obviously some guys have had trouble, which is unfortunate, but it’s part of the Safari. It’s a bit frustrating sometimes because you feel like you can take a bit more risk and go a bit faster, but I keep reminding myself where we are.
“It’s a shame for Ott, obviously, to have a mechanical [failure] like that. You never know in this game if it’s because the car has had an impact or if it’s just a standard failure, but it’s a shame for him because he was going well.”
Tänak said: “At the end of the second stage of the afternoon, I noticed we had a driveline issue, but we managed to finish the stage. We then realized it was an issue with the driveshaft but we were unable to remove it before the penultimate stage, so we had to drive through it carefully to stop it from damaging the engine. Luckily, we managed to remove it for the final stage, so we didn’t have to nurse it. We will try to come back tomorrow but we know it’s rough, its demanding and its hard on the car.”
Rovanperä , whose only bother was a spin in stage four, turned up the wick to win the day’s final two stages and close on his teammate with Tanak relegated to third overall some 55.4 seconds off the lead.
Neuville, who started the day in eighth place, incurred a one-minute penalty for leaving the morning service six minutes late, and went on to pick up a jump start penalty and another minute for leaving the midday service six minutes late and suffered two punctures along his climb back up the leaderboard to end the day in fourth.
Takamoto Katsuta ended Friday in fifth after not sleeping the previous night due to a tummy bug. He had two punctures in the day’s opening stage, relegating him to survival mode as he was out of spare rubber.
Sami Pajari and Marko Salminen ended their debut Safari in sixth position despite stopping to change a tyre in in morning’s first stage. Gregoire Munster and Louis Louka caught up to the young Finn and were blinded by the Toyota’s dust and hit a rock.
The M-Sport Ford driver had to deal with his Puma going into limp mode and later emerged from stage eight with a missing right-front fender. There were further troubles for the Puma driver who broke a bumper which folded over the air intake, leaving the Luxembourger to manage high engine temperatures, relegating him to 11th overall.
His young teammate Josh McErlean and co-driver Eoin Treacy had a solid drive to seventh. In stage seven, the Irishman stopped to investigate heat in the cabin, but there was no sign of a fire, which they thought may have been the issue. It turned out to be the spare wheel which came loose and punched a hole in the Puma’s boot, allowing the heat from the squashed exhaust into the cabin – along with loads of dust, leaving the pair to complete the day wearing goggles.
Adrien Fourmaux and Alex Coria retired (again) in stage seven with broken right-front suspension after not stopping to change a flat tyre.
Oliver Solberg and Elliot Edmondson lead WRC2 from the start to midway through stage seven when his Printsport-run Toyota GR Yaris bogged down in thick sand.
Kajetan Kajetanowicz ended the day in the WRC2 lead after a fierce battle with Gus Greensmith and Jonas Andersson, the gap between the warring Toyota and Skoda pair 10.2 seconds. Spaniard Jan Solans manhandled his GR Yaris Rally2 to third despite running the final trio of stages without power steering.
Saturday takes crews north to Lake Elmenteita for a trio of tests that are all familiar from previous years: Sleeping Warrior, Elmenteita and Soysambu. All three will be repeated after midday service in Naivasha.
