Rovanpera clears Safari Rally shakedown fastest as rivals hit trouble
Kalle Rovanpera kicked off his quest for consecutive Safari Rally Kenya victories in perfect fashion by emerging a clear winner of this morning’s shakedown stage.
The Finn’s best time at the wheel of his Toyota Gazoo Racing GR Yaris Rally1 through the short ‘Loldia’ warm-up was a second-and-a-half faster than the Puma Rally1 belonging to M-Sport Ford’s Ott Tanak.
Rovanpera’s benchmark of three minutes 32.4 seconds came on the second of his three runs and he sounded happy with how the exercise had gone for him, saying he had a “good feeling” on his return to the savannah. “Lots of unknown, but so far so good. Let’s see what the rally has to offer,” he said.
Despite Rovanpera drawing first blood, Tanak was quick to point out that round seven of the World Rally Championship “won’t be anything about performance – it will be just to get through”.
2021 event winner Sebastien Ogier was seven tenths of a second slower than Tanak and a shade over two seconds down on the time set by his Toyota team-mate.
The Frenchman has echoed the sentiments of Tanak, saying it is “about surviving” and getting the rub of the green to be in the race for victory come Sunday afternoon.
“Hopefully a bit more luck is coming on my side again this weekend because you really need it to win this rally,” said the eight-time World champion.
Hyundai Motorsport’s Thierry Neuville had four cracks at shakedown with his best effort a tenth up on the second points-scoring Toyota of last year’s runner-up, Elfyn Evans.
Takamoto Katsuta was sixth quickest despite rolling his car on the third run to end it 43 seconds down on Rovanpera’s time. Video footage shows the Japanese driver’s GR Yaris Rally1 hitting a compression with this appearing to send it offline and causing the rear to dig into the soft gravel.
Despite rolling twice, the car ended on its wheels and Katsuta was able to fire the engine up within seconds before returning to service with largely superficial damage.
Dani Sordo (Hyundai Motorsport) clocked a time of three minutes 37.4 seconds to claim seventh from Safari Rally Kenya newcomer Pierre-Louis Loubet (M-Sport Ford).
The third points-scoring Hyundai belonging to Esapekka Lappi was stopped in its tracks mid-way through his first run. He succeeded in nursing the car back to remote service where mechanics quickly identified the loud knocking sound to be a broken propshaft.
The problem was fixed only for the event newcomer to stop with the same problem on his return to shakedown meaning he starts Safari Rally Kenya without having experienced the terrain at competitive speeds.
