Kenya. Storms. Rain. Mud.
With just two stages on Thursday’s itinerary, Toyota Gazoo Racing dominated the opening day of Safari Rally Kenya with all five of their GR Yarises heading the standings at close of play.
Oliver Solberg and Elliot Edmondson made the most of their road position to win the opening test by exactly 30 seconds over Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin as a localized rainstorm drenched the already wet and muddy opening stage for the later runners, making the going extremely tough from the third car on the road.
“I had to open something as the windscreen was misting up but it didn’t really work and I got covered in mud instead. The feeling is good in the car and it is easy to drive but it was crazy difficult,” Solberg reported on the road section heading to stage two.
Such were the conditions in the first stage that the third fastest crew, Sebastien Ogier and Vincent Landais, were 69 seconds slower than Solberg while Katsuta set the fourth fastest time despite not having an intercom, leaving Aaron Johnston to revert to hand signals.
Fifth fastest, Sami Pajari and Marko Salminen dropped over two minutes, as did the three Hyundai drivers, headed by Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe who went through 4.1 seconds quicker than Adrien Fourmaux and Alex Coria.
Ogier won the 8km second stage to slot into third position overall, 6.4 seconds up on Katsuta. Pajari holds fifth while disaster befell all three i20 N crews as they all suffered water and/or oil temperature alerts, hemorrhaging time. Neuville ended the day in sixth, with Jon Armstrong and Shane Byrne holding a strong seventh in their M-Sport Puma.
After the opening stage, Neuville said: “We need a boat in there or something else than a rally car. I took it carefully you don’t know where it is slippery and what is behind the corner. Nothing is working everything is so cold, the brakes. The rally is long, anything can happen.”
Fourmaux and Esapekka Lappi ended eighth and ninth respectively while Josh McErlean made it through but was significantly slower than his team-mate Armstrong. The Irishman was 3m57.1sec slower than pacesetter Solberg.
Lappi described his stage; “It is impossible to drive at least for me. The grip really low and you just slide around. I had two half spins, it is so unpredictable. I cannot do anything.”
In WRC2, Gus Greensmith held a three second advantage over Diego Domingues with Robert Virves 5.6 seconds back in third.
1 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 30m18.6s
2 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +33.3s
3 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m05.1s
4 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m15.3s
5 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +2m06.4s
6 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +2m21.9s
7 Jon Armstrong/Shane Byrne (Ford Puma Rally1) +2m32.2s
8 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +2m38.1s
9 Esapekka Lappi/Enni Mälkönen (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +2m52.9s
10 Gus Greensmith/Jonas Andersson (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +3m42.5s
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