Safari Rally 2023: Ott Tänak sets early pace on Thursday

Thousands of fans flocked to the outskirts of Nairobi on Thursday afternoon to witness Ott Tänak take the quickest time through the Kasarani super special stage and claim the early lead at Safari Rally Kenya.

Fans were vying for every vantage point possible as the 70th edition of the iconic Safari Rally Kenya got underway on a purpose-built stage on the edge of the nation’s capital following the ceremonial start in downtown Nairobi.

It was M-Sport Ford’s Ott Tänak claiming the quickest time through 4.84km super special, going 0.1sec quicker than 2021 Safari winner Sébastien Ogier in his Toyota Gazoo Racing GR Yaris Rally1.

With action proper getting underway two hours north of Nairobi tomorrow (Friday) in and around Naivasha, it is on Saturday where Tänak believes the rally will be decided, opining at the end of Thursday’s stage.

"[Safari Rally Kenya is] a demanding one. Let's see after Saturday. I would say this day will tell us a lot."

2021 winner Ogier managed the second-quickest time on Thursday's opening stage

Completing the top three in another Yaris was Ogier’s team-mate and 2022 Safari winner, Kalle Rovanperä who was simply relieved to make it through the opening test of the weekend, following a near-roll on the same stage 12 months ago.

Winner last time out on Sardinia, Thierry Neuville was the best of the Hyundai Motorsport drivers, completing the stage fourth overall whilst it was Wales’ Elfyn Evans in Toyota Gazoo Racing’s third manufacturer point-scoring Yaris rounding out the top five.

Sitting just outside of the top five was Esapekka Lappi and Takamoto Katsuta, both of whom will be feeling more settled after each suffered separate setbacks on Shakedown on Wednesday. Lappi’s i20 N suffered a broken propshaft while Katsuta and co-driver Aaron Johnston walked away unscathed from a jarring roll.

Dani Sordo initially appeared to have claimed seventh-fastest overall before incurring a 10sec penalty for a false start, dropping the Hyundai pilot down to 16th overall.

This pushed Pierre-Louis Loubet in his M-Sport Ford Puma up one spot while Oliver Solberg, driving a rally2-spec Škoda Fabia albeit not scoring WRC2 points this weekend, snuck in ahead of the Puma of Jourdan Serderidis with the Greek rounding out the top 10.

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Action gets underway at 08:00 local time on Friday morning with the first of the day’s six stages. The biggest challenge will be the 30.62km Kedong stage which makes up the final stage of the morning and afternoon loops.

Friday’s opening leg spans the north and south sides of Lake Naivasha. It starts with Loldia (19.17km) which is followed by Geothermal (13.12km), a stage first introduced in 2022 which climbs over craggy rock-lined hills.

Kedong (30.48km) rounds out the loop before all three are repeated after service, bringing the day’s total to 125.54km.

Reporting by WRC