The WRC heads to Kenya for its breathtaking Safari Rally to continue an epic start to the 2024 season.
Last time out, Esapekka Lappi ended a six-and-a-half-year victory drought by winning the attritional Rally Sweden after Kalle Rovanpera, Ott Tanak and Takamoto Katsuta all found the snowbanks.
The crashes handed a sizeable lead to Lappi, who won the weekend by 29.6 seconds for his first victory since Rally Finland in 2017. And such were the effects of the changeable conditions that WRC2’s Oliver Solberg ended Friday in third overall before eventually finishing fifth.
It followed the season-opening Monte Carlo Rally where Thierry Neuville began his championship hunt with a perfect rally of 30 points.
The Hyundai driver finished fourth in Sweden meaning he heads into Kenya leading the championship by three points with Toyota’s Elfyn Evans in second after standing on the podium in both rounds this year. In quirk of the new points system, Evans left the rally scoring five more points than rally winner Lappi.
Neither Neuville nor Evans have won in Kenya though, which returned to the WRC calendar in 2021 after last appearing in 2002. However, their chances of victory have somewhat increased as Sebastien Ogier, who has won two of the past three Safari Rallies, will not be in Kenya this weekend due to the eight-time world champion only competing in WRC’s 2024 campaign part-time.
His Toyota entry will instead be going to the reigning two-time world champion Rovanpera, who is also competing in this year’s WRC part-time, but will be present in Kenya which is a rally he won in 2022.
M-Sport Ford will expand to three Puma entries led by Adrien Fourmaux, who claimed his first career WRC top tier podium with third in Sweden. The Frenchman will be joined by regular team-mate Gregoire Munster and privateer Jourdan Serderidis, who is making his first Rally1 start of the year.
Snorkels will also be making a return in Kenya. A snorkel is a device attached to the front of a rally car and helps them to navigate through sections of tricky terrain by preventing water and dust from entering the engine.
• Date: 28-31 March
• Start time: 9:26am GMT/12:26pm local time on Thursday 28 March
The Safari Rally starts at 9:26am in the United Kingdom and 12:26pm local time on Thursday 28 March. However, the first stage does not begin until later that day at 11:05am in the UK and 2:05pm local time once the ceremonial start has finished.
Before the opening stage of the Safari Rally is also the shakedown at 7am in the UK - 10am local time - on Wednesday 27 March, where drivers test various set-ups on their cars ahead of the weekend.
This Sunday morning will also see the UK clocks change with the start of British Summer Time. This means on the rally’s final day, the time difference between Great Britain and Kenya will be two hours and not three.
TNT Sports (formerly known as BT Sport) will live televise every round of the 2024 season as it holds the WRC broadcasting rights in the UK.
This means the WRC is not free-to-air as a subscription is needed to watch TNT. New customers can buy TNT for £18 per month and that deal includes all four sport channels and Discovery+.
Discovery+ is TNT’s live streaming platform meaning rally’s top category can be watched via a mobile or tablet device, as well as a console in 2024.
However, fans can also watch the WRC on Rally.tv, which has rights to broadcast the European Rally Championship and World Rallycross Championship as well. Rally.tv can be purchased via two deals: a yearly pass for £199.99 or a monthly pass for £12.99.
Source: Autosport