Safari Rally Kenya – Day One
Hyundai Motorsport has experienced a mixed start to its Safari Rally Kenya journey, the seventh round of the 2023 FIA World Rally Championship, ending the day with its crews in provisional fourth and sixth place.
It was a typical opening day for the notoriously gruelling rally, with many competitors picking up punctures or coming face-to-face with the local wildlife on the rocky and treacherous stages.
A tentative start from Safari Rally debutants Esapekka Lappi and Janne Ferm turned quickly into a strong drive, with the Finns claiming a stage win in the second stage of the day, SS3 Geothermal 1. A puncture on the final morning stage saw them drop 20 seconds alone, however a more assured drive in the afternoon with three top-three stage times saw them climb up the order from sixth to fourth, as others ran into trouble.
This included their team-mates Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe, who had snatched a provisional third place with the opening stage SS2 Loldia 1. A puncture on the following SS3 Geothermal 1 dropped them down the order to sixth, but the Belgians responded with the second fastest time on SS4 Kedong 1. It was the repeat of Geothermal that would prove their undoing; now running in fourth, Neuville and Wydaeghe were 7.9km into the stage when a nut came loose from the roughness of the roads, causing their suspension to fail. Unable to fix the issue on stage, they were forced to retire for the day.
Dani Sordo and Cándido Carrera had a relatively trouble-free run across the six stages, although they struggled for outright pace. They carefully navigated the day’s itinerary in their Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid, and finished the day in sixth.
Crew Notes: Esapekka Lappi/Janne Ferm (#4 Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid)
- Crew claimed stage win on SS3 Geothermal 1 on Safari Rally Kenya debut
- Progressed from seventh to fourth in classification with solid drive
Lappi said: “If you take our puncture out of the equation, today has been quite a decent day. We started carefully and then improved quite quickly; our afternoon was really consistent. The conditions are interesting, but I found them really fun. It’s a different kind of roughness we are facing, unlike anything I’ve seen before. On the soft fesh-fesh, you don’t know what to expect and it is so fast, so you have no time to react – you just have to drive and hope for the best. I need to keep improving on what we did today; I think the pace was brilliant this afternoon. We will concentrate on our own performance and the podium will be there if it is meant to be.”
Crew Notes: Dani Sordo/Cándido Carrera (#6 Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid)
- Spaniards survived day of attrition with trouble-free run
- Sitting in sixth heading into Saturday’s six stages
Sordo said: “Thankfully we had no real issues on the car today, which is good. It was a bit difficult on some of the stages, particularly on Kedong. It was really soft and the car was moving a lot in the fast sections, so I didn’t have a good pace there. With so many rocks, it is easy to make a small mistake. We also had a unique situation in one of the hairpins on the final stage, where we had to stop to allow dust inside the cockpit to clear. It is difficult to calculate the speed of the corners as you need to be aggressive, but you could easily move off the line onto the really soft surface and struggle to find traction.”
Crew Notes: Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (#11 Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid)
- Belgians retired on SS6 Geothermal with broken suspension
- Loose nut from rough stages caused front left damper to fail
Neuville said: “I’m very disappointed to be honest. Unfortunately we had to retire in the second stage of the afternoon, which isn’t good for our championship fight. There was no warning at all; just before a left junction, the damper came out of its position and the top mount came loose under braking, which was the end of the rally for us. It was a shame as we hoped our puncture in the morning was the end of our bad luck for the weekend. With the conditions here, anything can happen, and now we have to analyse if there is an opportunity to return tomorrow and get back into the points.”
Hyundai Motorsport Team Principal Cyril Abiteboul said: “Today has been difficult. After the two punctures in the morning that cost some time for both Thierry and Esapekka, Thierry’s suspension failure is a huge loss for our championship fight; clearly it should not happen, and as there was no human error involved, we need to investigate how to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Dani struggled for pace and grip in general, so we need to see how we can give him a car he can be more confident in. We were missing some pace to Toyota but we will be giving it our all to try and challenge the top three, which is a realistic and reasonable target given what we saw today.”
Saturday at a glance
- Safari Rally Kenya continues with six stages on Saturday’s itinerary, totalling 150.88km in competitive distance
- Crews will tackle two loops of Soysambu (SS8/11, 29.32km), Elementeita (SS9/12, 15.08km) and Sleeping Warrior (SS10/13, 31.04km), which are separated by midday service.
Classification after Day One
| 1 | S. Ogier | V. Landais | Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid | 1:14:38.7 |
| 2 | K. Rovanperä | J. Halttunen | Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 | +22.8 |
| 3 | E. Evans | S. Martin | Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 | +43.5 |
| 4 | E. Lappi | J. Ferm | Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid | +54.0 |
| 5 | T. Katsuta | A. Johnston | Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 | +1:19.4 |
| 6 | D. Sordo | C. Carrera | Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid | +1:28.4 |
| 7 | O. Tänak | M. Järveoja | Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrid | +3:03.3 |
| 8 | P. L. Loubet | N. Gilsoul | Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrid | +7:04.9 |
