Toyota Gazoo Racing set to highlight the 2023 WRC Safari

Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team speedsters led by champion Kalle Rovanpera will be the star attractions at this year's WRC Safari Rally which marks the highlight of the 2023 Kenya Motor Sports calendar.

The iconic Kenyan leg of the World Rally Championship (WRC) wil return to Naivasha for the third year running on the weekend of June 22-25.

The new development in the team, for Toyota, this season is the promotion of Japanese driver Takamoto Katsuta to their otherwise solid main line-up which will witness the return of Elfyn Evans to a full campaign.

Katsuta , who secured his maiden WRC podium in Kenya in 2021, was taken under the wing of Toyota’s WRC Challenge Program for young drivers in 2015 and made his top-flight debut in Germany four years ago.

The 2021 Safari winner Sebastien Ogier will be part of Gazoo outfit and is likely to take up the reins for the season-opening Rallye Monte-Carlo (19 - 22 January), an event he has won eight times. He is also expected to grace the Safari in June.

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Elfyn will join Kalle as part of Toyota's Safari lineup as both will compete for the full season for the Japanese manufacturer.

Toyota claimed the top four positions on Safari last year and will be hoping for a repeat performance on Naivasha's world famous fesh-fesh stages.

The 2023 WRC will feature a new round which takes place across three countries when Austria, Czech Republic and Germany host the Central European Rally from 26 - 29 October. The asphalt rally will be based out of the south-east German city of Passau.

The Japanese manufacturer failed to feature on the podium in Sardinia or Lamia this season, which is why technical director Tom Fowler is putting effort behind development for the hotter, more abrasive gravel rallies to come in 2023.

A podium lock-out (in fact a perfect top four) on Safari Rally would indicate the issue doesn’t sit on rough rallies – Fowler feels it’s more linked to the car’s use of Pirelli’s hard compound tyre.

“We know we didn’t have a good Greece,” said Fowler. “The test didn’t go well and neither did the rally. It seems we need to look at the hard-surface style of events. Where we’re using the harder tyre, that looks like it’s our weakness with this car."