Solberg leads as Ogier fights back

Oliver Solberg continued to lead Safari Rally Kenya at the end of Friday’s morning loop as Sebastien Ogier ignited a charge to haul himself into the victory fight.

Solberg started Friday with a 33.3s lead over Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans, while carrying a margin of more than a minute over reigning world champion Ogier. By the end of the loop Solberg’s lead had been cut to 28.8s, with Ogier only 38.2s adrift.

Overnight heavy rain forced organisers to cancel the day’s opening stage, a second pass through Camp Moran, due to deteriorating road conditions that left sections of the stage inaccessible to technical and medical vehicles. But by the time crews were back under way, blue skies and dry stages greeted the drivers.

After losing more than a minute to the unfortunate timing of a heavy rain shower on Thursday, Ogier quickly set about trying to make up the lost time. The Toyota driver blitzed stage four, winning the test by 2.5s from Sami Pajari. 

Ogier’s time was 16.2s faster than rally leader Solberg, who overshot a corner that the Swede felt cost 10 seconds. Ogier was also 15.4s faster than Evans, who battled a brake issue with his GR Yaris that left the Welshman clearly unhappy. 

The remaining two stages of the loop were claimed by the impressive Pajari. The Finn had already been fortunate to avoid rolling his Toyota in the stage four, but continued to take risks that were rewarded with stage wins. Pajari did end stage five with a tyre coming off the rim and was ambitious over the stage six jump. 

Ogier continued to take time away from Evans, closing the gap to his second placed team-mate to 9.4s after stage six that included a front-right puncture for the nine-time world champion. 

“I tried to be careful, but it’s a pure lottery here. We will see which conditions we have [this afternoon], but it looks like the rain is coming again,” said Ogier.

Solberg emerged from the final stage of the loop with a time 0.1s quicker than Ogier, but was more importantly 1.6s faster than Evans, who had cut the gap to the lead to 27.2s before the stage.

“I was way too careful this morning with the rocks. I just want to keep it clean and as long as I keep around where Evans is, then I’m happy, but Ogier is very quick,” said Solberg. “There is so much cleaning behind. It has been a decent morning and I’m just trying to enjoy, learn and not have any punctures.”  

Evans added: “The first one was a bit frustrating and I was managing a bit of an issue there but we managed to sort it after. It is just about how brave you want to be on things that will break the car.”

Toyota maintained its top-five lockout with Takamoto Katsuta in fourth [+1m04.2s], 27.7s ahead of team-mate Pajari.

Thierry Neuville, Martijn Wydaeghe, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1

Photo by: Hyundai

Thierry Neuville continued to lead Hyundai’s charge in sixth, 43.4s behind Pajari. Neuville did lose time to stalling his car’s engine in stage four and picked up a left-rear puncture in stage five, while the 2024 world champion also reported a lack of power. 

“It feels very slow, there is no power and compared to previous years it is much worse,” said Neuville. “It is a different kind of driving style and somehow I have to use the engine differently. I’m really struggling. Kenya is a nice rally and I want to enjoy it, and not complain too much.”

There were no signs of the overheating issues that plagued the Hyundai crews on Thursday night that was caused by mud blocking the radiators on the i20 N Rally1 cars.

Adrien Fourmaux showed flashes of strong pace to climb up to seventh ahead of M-Sport-Ford’s Jon Armstrong, with Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi struggling for speed in ninth. Gus Greensmith continued to lead WRC2 in 10th overall, while M-Sport’s sister Rally1 Puma driven by Josh McErlean was 12th after suffering further overheating issues.

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