Kalle Rovanperä is dominating the Safari Rally Kenya, the third round of the World Rally Championship (WRC), in a overwhelming way. With six stages to go, the Toyota driver has a lead of over two minutes at the top of the standings. This Saturday there was some mud, after the rains of the past few days.
During the morning, the stages had three different winners: Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota) prevailed in SS 8 (Soysambu 1), while Thierry Neuville (Hyundai) set the pace in the following stage of Elmenteita. In SS 10 (Sleeping Warrior 1), it was Rovanperä who set the fastest time.
Despite the diversity of winners, the Finn was consistent, avoided problems, and strengthened his lead in the standings, now having almost a minute and a half advantage. Ott Tänak (Hyundai) had new technical issues in the car in SS 8 and lost a lot of time, while his teammate Esapekka Lappi damaged a wheel and also lost time.
Elfyn Evans started the stage in second place overall, but suffered a puncture in his Toyota which cost him precious time. Evans’ problems put Neuville back in the podium positions, and the Belgian even overtook Katsuta to become second in SS 10.
However, he started the afternoon with a breakdown in the i20 N Rally1 and that took him out of the fight. Katsuta was once again the winner in SS 11, where Katsuta regained the second place in the rally and Adrien Fourmaux (M-Sport Ford) reached third, ahead of Neuville. Rovanperä continued solid and now had a margin of over two minutes. This lead was consolidated in the next stage, won by Evans, although in SS 13 (Sleeping Warrior 2) he lost some ground. The fastest was Tänak.
Thierry Neuville a été contraint de terminer SS11 en mode EV en raison de problèmes de moteur ⚡️ pic.twitter.com/EjP0RRYxam
— Championnat du Monde des Rallyes (@OfficialWRC) 30 mars 2024
En ce moment, le double champion du monde mène avec 2m08,9s d’avance sur Katsuta, Fourmaux étant troisième. Evans et Neuville complètent le top cinq devant Gus Greensmith (Skoda). Le Britannique a été le plus rapide du WRC2 dans deux des six spéciales du samedi, menant la catégorie avec 1m55s d’avance sur Oliver Solberg (Skoda) – qui a dicté le rythme dans les quatre autres spéciales. Kajetan Kajetanowicz (Skoda) est troisième, étant en tête du WRC2 Challenger avec une avance de 5m04,44s sur Nicolas Ciamin (Hyundai). Le Polonais n’a perdu que la SP 8 contre Diego Domínguez Jr. (Citroën) dans les comptes du WRC2 Challenger ce samedi. Charles Munster, également en Hyundai, est troisième.
Anwar Hamza, seul représentant du WRC3, est toujours en course, tandis que Carl Tundo (Ford) mène la WRC2 Masters Cup avec 37,2s d’avance sur George Vasilakis (Ford) – dans ce qui est actuellement la catégorie la plus disputée.
Top dix du classement général après la SP 13:
