Defending Kenya and African Rally Championship champion Jassi Chatthe has promised a flat-out approach to the 2016 Kenya National Rally Championship season.
Chatthe will launch his title defence in Kajiado on Saturday February 27 during the first round of the Kenya National Rally championship.
Jassi, as he is fondly referred to in rallying circles, admitted taking a cautious approach last season, adding that he will concentrate more on finishing and driving flat out.
“To be very frank it will be full attack in 2016. Last year I took a different approach but this year it will be flat-out action. On the continental front, we will be targeting a few events on this side of Africa which is Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda but not Zambia, South Africa and of course Ivory Coast. But again, it will all depend on how well we perform in East Africa and if we have good chances, then we might consider going to Madagascar,” said Jassi.
Asked about the conversion of his Mitsubishi Lancer EvolutionX from Group N to R4, Jassi added that there isn’t a very big difference as it makes the car lighter and a bit more precise in handling: “We had already converted our car to R4 at beginning of last year. We have since been working on improving reliability whenever we had issues, of course with the support from MML UK. Basically Kabras are just following what had already done.”
Other KNRC to guns include last year,’s runner up Ian Duncan, Baldev Chager, Carl Tundo, Rajbir Rai, and Rai siblings Onkar and Tejveer.
KCB extended its support for the rally series for the 14th year with KShs 45million towards the 2016 season following the official 2016 KCB KNRC launch at the Ngong Race Course.
During the launch, Liquid Telecom extended its sponsorship deal into the main KNRC series having already finalized further one year-deal with Ian Duncan.
The telecommunication outfit will help KMSF acquire world rally-class timing technology that will see further improvement in the production of results during each of the eight rounds of the KNRC.
Phineas Kimathi, who represented KMSF as one of Directors of the motor sports body, said it was a good move to have Liquid Telecommunication on board with a package that can only be described as significant to the development of the sport.