WRC Safari Rally Kenya is among nine rounds of the 2022 FIA World Rally Championship calendar confirmed at this week's FIA World Motor Sports Council meeting in Monaco.
Although the council didn't announce new dates for Safari Rally 2022, the iconic Kenyan round was approved for inclusion alongside Portugal, Italy, Japan, Spain, Estonia, and Greece.
The remaining four slots for the 13-round season will be confirmed later, according to the council.
The opening round at Rallye Monte-Carlo will be held in the days leading up to the finish on January 23, while Rally Sweden, which will be based in Umeå for the first time, will end on February 27. Rally Sweden is traditionally the calendar's all-snow event.
The inclusion of the Safari Rally by the council follows an earlier announcement by President Uhuru Kenyatta that the world governing body, FIA, had agreed to retain the Kenyan round on the calendar for the next five years until 2026.
Frenchman Sebastien Ogier emerged winner of the 2021 Safari Rally after he capitalised on Thierry Neuville's broken suspension.
Ogier extended his championship lead after the conclusion of the calendar's most popular round on June 27. The Safari Rally was first held in 1953 to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
The iconic Safari joined the global series in 1973, the same year the late Shekhar Mehta emerged the victor. In 2002, the event was dropped from the WRC calendar and readmitted back to the prestigious global series in 2020 after a long 18-year hiatus.
The 2020 event was nevertheless postponed to 2021 due to the global outbreak of the coronavirus. FIA President Jon Todt recently told DirtFish: “For me, it’s quite surprising to do an interview with a hippo behind us… but that is Kenya – it’s the beauty of Kenya,”
