How Evans followed in the footsteps of WRC Safari masters McRae and Burns

Elfyn Evans is now a member of an exclusive club of three, joining Colin McRae and Richard Burns as British winners of the World Rally Championship’s toughest event – Safari Rally Kenya.

For a spell, British drivers ruled the African classic with McRae and Burns unlocking the secret to conquering this gruelling test of driver and machine by winning five of six editions from 1997-2002; McRae in ‘97, ’99 and ‘02, Burns ‘98 and ’00.

On route to winning the rally for a second time 25 years ago – 12 months before his world title season with Subaru – Burns said: “If you get to the end of a section in one piece then normally you have a good time. If I was setting fastest times then I am probably going a bit too fast because you can win this event without setting any fastest times, as long as you get through the event cleanly.”

Last weekend it appeared Evans seemingly followed this advice setting only three fastest times along the 21 gruelling stages en route to victory. A win that continues his best start to a WRC campaign. Like the Safari’s of old, this was a rally won by minutes not seconds.

“I think we said it before the start that this would be the most extreme Safari we have seen. I think you needed to leave a bit in reserve in the end and I think for me that was the key,” said Evans, after he and co-driver Scott Martin lifted the iconic Rhino trophies presented to the Safari winners.

The modern Safari Rally is no longer the thousand kilometre marathon that McRae and Burns faced, but last weekend’s proved that this now extended 384km modern edition is still among the most brutal in global motorsport. It continues to be a rally of attrition where a blend of speed, patience and luck is required to succeed. Installed as Toyota’s team principal in place of the absent Jari-Matti Latvala for the weekend, three-time Safari winner Juha Kankkunen knows a thing or two about taming the wild savannah stages. So when he admitted this year’s event was the toughest modern Safari, that’s says it all.

Evans tames the most demanding modern Safari

Crews knew this edition had the potential to go up a notch in difficulty given the fact even their recce cars found it difficult to traverse the stages when making pacenotes. The recent heavy rain meant the grass verges were much higher, hiding potential hazards and the roads had taken a battering from the weather.

Hyundai’s Ott Tanak summed it up the best: “The roads are not really prepared and there are some huge stones, and more technical sections this year, so altogether Safari is always demanding, but this year it seems a bit extra. The key will be to survive and have a good rhythm without trouble.”

While Evans opened the rally with an early lead after winning the Nairobi super special, Tanak was the pacesetter on Friday morning winning three of the four stages, including Kenya’s new car breaker, Camp Moran.

It was that Camp Moran test that would have a sting in the tail. Evans was rightly cautious tackling the stage that featured brutal rocky sections followed by Fesh-Fesh sand ready to snare a rally car. Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux and WRC2 leader Oliver Solberg both came to a halt there, with broken suspension for the former, while the latter became bogged in the sand.

Now equipped with a 36-point lead, the biggest margin after three rounds in the WRC’s history, talk of upgrading his four-time runner tag to world champion is rapidly growing. But in typical Evans style he’s not getting carried away

Tanak took a combined 50.1s out of Evans through its two passes on his way to opening up a 46.1s lead. However, Tanak’s i20 N had become wounded as a driveshaft failure forced the Estonian to limp through Friday’s remaining stages in third, 55.4s adrift of new leader Evans.

Evans’ Toyota team-mate and two-time Safari winner Kalle Rovanpera emerged as his nearest rival closing to within 7.7s. But the Safari would bite again on Saturday. Evans suffered a puncture and a spin in the morning, but Rovanpera picked up a pair of tyre blows, the second caused by taking evasive action to avoid a herd of zebras.

Torrential rain then fell in the afternoon creating severely water-logged stages that M-Sport’s Gregoire Munster claimed were more suitable for a “jet ski” than a rally car. Evans took care and was fortunate to recover from a spin before misfortune struck Rovanpera who hit an unseen rock that damaged his left-rear suspension. Evans kindly offered some advice to Rovanpera who fashioned a makeshift repair using ratchet straps to keep his suspension intact, but more than six minutes were lost as the Finn limped back to service in fifth.

Keeping out of trouble was the main aim, with Tanak ending up as Evans’ nearest challenger

Photo by: Vincent Thuillier / Hyundai Motorsport

Even when he’d amassed a 1m57.4s lead over Tanak following the troubles that struck Rovanpera and Tanak, Evans was never complacent.

“It has definitely been a proper Safari so far. A two-minute lead, normally you would say that would guarantee a win, but not really here. I’ll try to drive well and see after a few stages if [Super Sunday] points might be possible and we will continue to go for them, but I’m not going for an all-out banzai attack tomorrow,” said Evans, echoing the rhetoric of Burns back in 2000.

Evans did have a minor scare on Sunday as he chose to back off to seal victory by 1m09.9s from Tanak, and back-to back WRC wins for the first time in his career. Reigning world champion Thierry Neuville recovered from a myriad of reliability issues and health concerns to finish third, 3m32s off Evans.

Evans’ Safari Rally plan had worked just like it had for McRae and Burns.

“It is a special event. It is bit like a Monte Carlo win or a Rally GB win or Finland, so I just have Monte missing now,” Evans smiled.

Now equipped with a 36-point lead over Neuville, the biggest margin after three rounds in the WRC’s history, talk of upgrading his four-time runner tag to world champion is rapidly growing. But in typical Evans style he’s not getting carried away. “It doesn’t matter, it is very early days and it doesn’t mean anything yet,” he added.

It is, however, looking like early title favourite Rovanpera will need to produce his very best to claim a third crown after an alternator issue on Sunday forced a retirement, leaving him 57 points behind Evans.

“Of course it is not the best feeling, I’m disappointed but that is what it is,” said Rovanpera, who appeared to adapt to Hankook’s gravel tyres better than its snow and asphalt rubber.

“Everything came during the same weekend and we had no luck with many things. It is not the best weekend, we can do nothing to change what happened. At some point we should get a good result.”

Rovanpera leaves Kenya with nothing to show for his efforts after retiring on Sunday

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Hyundai turn the tables on Toyota

Toyota may have continued its 100% unbeaten run by scoring its fifth consecutive Safari win, but the Safari Rally kings were outscored by Hyundai, as Tanak’s run to second and Neuville’s third mark the Korean brand’s best return from Kenya.

Prior to this year, Hyundai’s Safari record has been wretched as reliability issues have restricted the team to only one podium, Tanak’s third in 2021, from the previous four attempts.

Reliability issues continued to plague it this year with driveshafts appearing to be the weak item, but lessons have most certainly been learned. There was no denying the i20 N had pace in the roughest conditions in the dry, perhaps best displayed by Tanak winning Camp Moran before Neuville repeated the feat in the second pass by an astonishing 22.4s.

“It is not a win for us but it certainly feels like one. We know we have come a very long way on this rally” Cyril Abiteboul

However, the i20 N suffered from the force that had gone through it, as Tanak’s driveshaft failure hit, while cooling issues meant Neuville and co-driver Martijn Wydaeghe, battling illness from dehydration, incurred a 50s penalty for being late to stage eight. Neuville had already picked up a one-minute penalty for being six minutes late to stage three after Hyundai opted to change the driveshaft and gearbox following a problem on Thursday’s stage two. This came on top of a 10s penalty for jumping the start at stage five. Incredibly, come the end of Friday, Neuville would have led the rally had he avoided two minutes’ worth of penalties.

When the heavens opened on Saturday, Hyundai was left floundering for grip in the water-logged stages. The drivers also had poor visibility from misting up windscreens that forced co-drivers Martijn Wydaeghe and Martin Jarveoja to use their ingenuity to fashion a makeshift de-misting device – a selfie stick with a cloth on the end.

But Rovanpera’s retirement followed by a dramatic roll on the final stage that accounted for Takamoto Katsuta, who surrendered fifth after failing to drive his wounded Toyota to the final time control, meant Evans was Toyota’s only points scorer. Sami Pajari enjoyed a relatively trouble free maiden Safari to finish fourth but is not registered to score manufacturer points for Toyota’s main team.

The muddy sections left Hyundai scrambling for grip

Photo by: Austral / Hyundai Motorsport

“It was demanding but altogether in the end quite positive,” said Tanak. “Of course we had some setbacks on Friday when we lost a couple of minutes but after that on Saturday and Sunday we managed to come through without many massive troubles. In the end two cars on the podium for Hyundai shows that some steps have been taken forward.”

Boosted by Fourmaux taking the maximum 10 Super Sunday points after sitting out Saturday, Hyundai scored 50 points to Toyota’s 28, closing the gap on the reigning champions to 26 points.

“It is not a win for us but it certainly feels like one,” said Hyundai boss Cyril Abiteboul. “We know we have come a very long way on this rally and not just this weekend, as we know the reliability of this car was not at the right levels. But hats off to the team because it is already a big step better than it used to be.”

M-Sport shows its Safari resilience

There was also reward for M-Sport-Ford that again showed resilience in the toughest of circumstances. Munster drove valiantly while grieving for his grandfather who passed away during the shakedown. He ran as high as third on Thursday before a series of punctures, a suspension failure and a gearbox issue resulted in the Luxembourger recovering to sixth, 11m35.3s off the win.

Munster also picked up his second career stage win in the crazy stage 15 as M-Sport recorded its first 1-2 since 2023, with rookie Josh McErlean backing up the Puma’s pace. McErlean sat fourth on Friday but finished just inside the points-paying positions in 10th due to Katsuta’s failure to finish, after losing almost 30 minutes while repairing a broken steering arm on Saturday.

“I think despite the dramas we’ve faced here in Kenya, we’ve had a very positive weekend overall,” said team principal Richard Millener.

“Not a single crew went unscathed this weekend, and to have a 100% finish rate for our Rally1 crews, all of them finishing within the top 10, is an incredible achievement.”

The WRC heads back to the Canary Islands for its next round in April

Photo by: M-Sport