•The Flying Finn will add Safari Rally to his partial World Rally Championship campaign in the company of Japanese star teammates Elfyn Evans and Takamoto Katsuta.
•The Rovanpera family has vivid memories of the Safari with Kalle’s dad Harri Rovanpera finishing second overall in 2022 before the iconic event stayed in the cold for nearly two decades.
Image: FILE
World champion Kalle Rovanpera will return to Kenya to defend the WRC Safari Rally title on March 28-31.
The Flying Finn will add Safari Rally to his partial World Rally Championship campaign in the company of Japanese star team-mates Elfyn Evans and Takamoto Katsuta.
The eight-time World Rally champion Sebastien Ogier will for the first time miss out on the iconic event since Safari’s return to the global series in 2021.
Like Rovanpera, Ogier is also running a partial WRC campaign for the Japanese team Toyota Gazoo Racing. Ogier was the Safari winner in 2021 and will be the notable absentee for Toyota Gazoo Racing who will be running three GR Yaris Rally 1 cars.
The rally will be Rovanpera’s fourth appearance since Safari comeback to the WRC calendar in 2021
The Finn has already tasted victory once, in 2022, when he led a historic Toyota 1-2-3-4 sweep ahead of Elfyn by 52.8 seconds. Katsuta completed the podium ahead of Ogier.The Rovanpera family has vivid memories of the Safari with Kalle’s dad Harri Rovanpera finishing second overall in 2002 before the iconic event stayed in the cold for nearly two decades.
The Finn took part in Rally Sweden but crashed out of the lead, landing his Yaris in a snowbank and damaging the radiator.
Although frustrated at the way his maiden 2024 outing had ended, the reigning champion was impressed with the pace in his car.
“The car was fast enough to win,” Rovanpera told www.wrc.com in Sweden, adding: “We worked with the car before the event and it was really good. It’s positive that we could have been in the fight, but I just couldn’t bring everything together.”
Clerk of the Course Gurvir Bhabra said it’s exciting to see the world champions return to the Safari with a strong team.
“Kalle, Elfyn and Takamoto are expected to thrill fans on the Easter weekend. But it will be interesting to see how the other two teams (Hyundai and M-Sport) fare against the GR Yaris Rally1,” Bhabra noted.
Asked how the Safari route looks like in the wake of torrential rains, Bhabra continued: “The route is not as bad as expected after the rains we’ve had since January. Some work is required though and will be done before the event.”
Organisers have made a few tweaks to the event. Apart from minor changes to the Sleeping Warrior and Kedong stages, the rest of the competitive sections will be intact, running around the nerve centre at the Wildlife Research and Training Institute in Naivasha.
Bhabra is being assisted by Anwar Sidi (route liaison/ media safety), George Mwangi and Nazir Yakub (both assistant Clerks of the Course), as part of the main team of officials mandated to make sure the stages are perfect