The FIA World Rally Championship continues with the third round of the season as the legendary Safari Rally Kenya gets underway on Thursday. Finnish duo Sami Pajari and Marko Salminen already gained experience of the event last year with the Toyota GR Yaris Rally1, finishing an impressive fourth overall. This year the goal is to slightly increase the pace and, as a result, fight for a podium position.
The Safari Rally is known as one of the most demanding rounds of the championship, even though the rally is nowadays significantly shorter than it was in the 1980s and 1990s. This year the crews will tackle 20 special stages covering a total of 338.34 kilometres against the rugged terrain of the African continent.
During recce, conditions have already varied widely, with both dust-covered and mud-splattered cars seen on the stages. Rain is also a possibility during the rally itself. The stages feature a very diverse range of road surfaces, and any rainfall would certainly not make things easier. Crews will face wide and narrow roads, hard-packed gravel, softer gravel, deep and powdery fesh-fesh sand, rocky sections, as well as grassy and muddy stretches.
The route largely follows last year’s layout, although there are some small changes within the stages and certain sections will be run in the opposite direction. The most noticeable change is that the rally will not begin with a spectator stage in Nairobi this time. As a result, the shakedown has been moved from Wednesday to Thursday morning, with the rally itself getting underway later the same afternoon. This makes the overall schedule one day more compact while also reducing the number of liaison kilometres.
Naivasha once again serves as the rally headquarters, located roughly 90 kilometres northwest of Nairobi. This edition marks the 74th running of the Safari Rally, underlining the event’s long and prestigious history. However, it has not always been part of the WRC calendar. After the 2002 edition there was a long hiatus, with the rally returning to the championship in 2021, after the 2020 event had been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Competing for Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT2, Pajari and Salminen finished fourth in last year’s rally. This time they head to Kenya with that experience in mind, but with a measured approach and strong respect for the challenge ahead. A podium result from Rally Sweden earlier this season provides confidence, although the Kenyan event is a completely different kind of rally. Historically, however, the rally has been a successful one for Toyota machinery.
“Sweden was a really nice rally for me with a solid performance and result, but Kenya will be a completely different and unique challenge. Doing the rally for the first time last year was a real adventure. On some stages it’s more a matter of surviving, but there are others which are more fast and flowing. It’s a rally where I believe experience is playing quite a big role.”
“Last year we had a clever approach and finished fourth, which was a good result for our first time, but I hope this year we can have more speed and fight for the podium positions, while still needing to be smart about where we push and where we back-off.”