This is Safari Rally…
EDWIN OTIENO
The Belgian crew of Thierry Neuville and Martin Wydaeghe won three of the six punishing gravel and sandy stages to hold a lead of 18.8 seconds after the opening leg of the Safari Rally Kenya on Friday.
Two scintillating runs through the longest stage of the rally enabled the Belgian to push his Hyundai i20 hard where conditions permitted and he managed to carve out the advantage over young Japanese driver Takamoto Katsuta, despite finishing the last stage with two flat tyres.
Neuville’s Estonian team-mate Ott Tänak also finished the last stage of the day with no rubber on a front rim and held third place after Toyota rival Kalle Rovanperä got stuck in fesh-fesh 900 metres after the start of the last special and was towed off the racing line and out of a potential overnight lead.
The Finn could have continued without time penalties, as per a Safari ruling on outside assistance to clear a car off the stage, but the Finn opted not to continue and would instead incur a lesser penalty of 10 minutes for failing to complete the stage.
Sébastien Ogier wasn’t his usual clean and tidy self on the morning’s loop and an overshoot, a minor coming together with a trackside ridge and a rear damper issue proved costly for the Frenchman.
The championship leader slipped to seventh overall before climbing back to fourth at the expense of both of the M-Sport Ford Fiestas.
Briton Gus Greensmith finished the leg in fifth in his Ford and Adrien Fourmaux was sixth after setting the third quickest time on the last stage of the day.
Both Toyota Gazoo Racing and the Hyundai Shell Mobis team lost one of their cars on the first loop.
Elfyn Evans’s WRC title challenge suffered a major setback when he clouted a rock within 300 metres of the finish of the first Kedong stage and damaged the front-right hand suspension of the Yaris.
It was a bitter blow for the Welshman who, like Hyundai rival Dani Sordo, was forced into Rally2 by one unfortunate mistake.
Sordo also clouted a rock, spun his i20 and was side-lined for the day in an incident that easily have been far more costly in terms of damage.
“In the straight line we take a small stone in the middle of the road and it broke the arm of the suspension,” said Sordo.
“We started to slide and the steering locked. I could do nothing.” Evans said: “Just coming to the end of a fast section, there was a stone that was sticking out more into the road than I anticipated. Unfortunately, we clipped it with the front right wheel and it was enough to break the suspension quite badly.”
With both Lorenzo Bertelli and Oliver Solberg also sidelined on the morning’s loop, Czech driver Martin Prokop (Ford Fiesta) found himself on track for maximum WRC2 points in eighth until he retired after an accident on the penultimate stage.
Friday – as it happened
Ogier was the first driver into the narrow 13.34km of the Chui Lodge stage and the Frenchman survived the choking fesh-fesh and his first real African challenge to card a time of 9min 54.9sec.
Evans ran nine-tenths of a second quicker than his team-mate on the slippery and rutted surface but the fastest time and the outright lead fell to Neuville with a run of 9min 47.7sec.
Katsuta stalled and dropped 20.4 seconds to the stage winner, as Rovanperä settled into second place and Tänak held third.
