Rovanpera takes lead of Safari Rally Kenya with clean sweep

Rovanpera takes lead of Safari Rally Kenya with clean sweep

29th March 2024 0 By Kamron Kent
Feature Image Credit: Red Bull Content Pool

Toyota Gazoo Racing’s, reigning world champion, Kalle Rovanpera has snatched the lead of Safari Rally Kenya after the morning loop as he completed a clean sweep of stage wins.

Three stages lined up the morning loop in Kenya; Loldia, Geothermal and Kedong, which  amounted to 63.79km of on-course action for the competitors to complete.

Putting ‘good’ in Good Friday, Rovanpera completed a clean sweep of stage wins, across all three stages of the loop, to snatch the rally lead away from Hyundai’s championship leader, Thierry Neuville who initally had the lead following his win at the Kasarani super special stage.

Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi was Rovanpera’s closest rival after the loop, in second, but the Finn had his teammate for company as Ott Tanak completed the provisional podium places down in third, 1.3s behind.

Toyota’s Japanese/Irish crew of Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston took fourth place, as best of the rest, ahead of his teammate Elfyn Evans who occupied fifth. Both crews were 40 seconds off the pace of Rovanpera.

Neuville had a morning to forget as he looked to extend his championship lead, over Evans, heading into the weekend. After only managing fourth fastest on SS2 (Loldia), the Belgian had rear-right tyre damage on stage three where he ended seventh fastest. 

The damage caused resulted in a hole in their Hyundai i20 N Rally1. This forced the two to create make-shift tools to aid them on the longest stage of the day Kedong (31.5km), in addition to wearing goggles and masks.

Adrien Fourmaux and Gregoire Munster were the two leading drivers for M-Sport Ford, in seventh and eighth respectively. 

WRC2’s Gus Greensmith remains the leading driver of the supporting category, in ninth, despite not pushing as much due to Oliver Solberg’s double puncture in the loop. 

M-Sport’s Jourdan Serderidis completed the top 10, in 10th, four minutes off Rovanpera’s time.

That’s all for the article; Rovanpera takes lead of Safari Rally Kenya with clean sweep!

Read more WRC here:

Give us a follow on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to keep up with the latest news from the world of Motorsport! You can also support us on Patreon or on our website!

Hi, I'm Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion. I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I've loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.

CategoryNews Rallying WRC
TagsHyundai Kalle Rovanpera Kenya Safari Kenya Safari Rally Safari Rally Kenya Thierry Neuville Toyota WRC

About the author

Hi, I'm Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion. I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I've loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.

Leave a Reply