Elfyn Evans is poised to extend his FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) lead after surviving a chaotic Saturday at Safari Rally Kenya, ending the penultimate leg with a hefty 1min 57.4sec advantage over Hyundai’s Ott Tänak.
Fortune favoured the Welshman once again as Africa’s legendary endurance test served up another brutal helping of carnage. From bone-dry dust bowls to rain-soaked mudbaths, the day showcased the full spectrum of Safari extremes – and Evans was one of the few who stayed in tune.
“It’s been remarkably difficult out there today. This has definitely been a proper Safari,” said Evans. “Even this morning the conditions were really quite tricky after a lot of rain overnight. Then the rain came again immediately as we started the afternoon loop. The conditions were horribly inconsistent, and I was trying to treat everything with care but it’s easy to drop a lot of time. I couldn’t see much at all at the end with so much mud, but I’m happy we managed to get through it. Even with this gap, nothing is guaranteed on this rally. Tomorrow will be demanding and rough and anything can still happen, so we need to stay focused.”
Evans started Saturday with a slender 7.7sec buffer but immediately laid down a marker on the Sleeping Warrior opener. Even with rear tyre damage near the end of the 26.97-kilometre test, he still extended his lead by 8.2sec over Toyota GAZOO Racing team-mate Kalle Rovanperä.
Rovanperä’s response unravelled swiftly. A front-right tyre deflation five kilometres from the end of Elmenteita cost him 21.1sec, and worse followed at Soysambu, where a front-left puncture dropped him another 55.5sec. By midday service, his deficit to Evans had ballooned to 1min 32.5sec.
“Today was not an easy day for us,” said Rovanperä. “It started well this morning but then we had some bad luck with some punctures, and the afternoon was even worse; in Sleeping Warrior we hit a big loose stone in a muddy section and it broke something in the suspension. We tried to make a small fix before each stage, and although it didn’t last we could at least get through the stages and get back to service. It’s still a long day ahead tomorrow with some tricky stages and a lot of points available, and we’ll do the best we can.”
Conditions deteriorated on the repeated afternoon loop, and although Rovanperä clawed back 11.7sec from Evans on a sodden second pass of Sleeping Warrior, he arrived at the finish with a damaged rear suspension arm. A makeshift roadside fix involving a ratchet strap kept him going, but with no choice but to back off through the final two stages, he dropped almost five minutes and slipped to fifth overall behind Tänak, Thierry Neuville and Takamoto Katsuta.
Evans, who arrived in Kenya holding a 28-point championship lead, is now within touching distance of his first Safari Rally victory – and a significantly bolstered title advantage, should he make it through Sunday unscathed. That’s no foregone conclusion. His Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 sustained front-right damage after a moment in the final stage – a timely reminder of how the event can bite back.
“It’s definitely been a proper Safari so far. Two minutes; normally you would say that guarantees you a win – but not here,” Evans added. “On a rally like Kenya, you have to weigh up the risk factor. We still need to drive well tomorrow, that goes without saying, and see what [points] we can pick up.”
The drama didn’t stop with Rovanperä. In classic Safari fashion, nearly every Rally1 frontrunner faced some form of adversity. Second-placed Tänak lost time with a deflated tyre early on, then grappled with visibility issues when the windscreen of his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 fogged up on SS12. Even so, he carries a 2min 36.0sec cushion over team-mate Neuville into Sunday’s five-stage finale.
Neuville’s day was anything but straightforward. Two punctures, a misted windscreen, and a misfiring engine late in the day all combined to slow his charge. But he still gained a position on the final test when Katsuta was forced to stop and change a wheel – his third deflation of the day. The Japanese driver has also been battling illness, making his pair of stage wins even more impressive.
Sami Pajari brought his Toyota home in a lonely sixth overall, 54.4sec behind Rovanperä but more than four minutes ahead of Grégoire Munster’s Ford Puma Rally1. Munster began the day in 11th and even bagged a stage win on SS15.
