Sébastien Ogier continues to lead Safari Rally Kenya, but Toyota team-mate Kalle Rovanperä isn’t letting him run away with it at Saturday’s midway point.
Ogier built himself a handsome lead over the course of Friday and duly set about protecting that on the second full day.
But the eight-time world champion, targeting his second Safari win and third victory of this World Rally Championship season, actually managed to extend his lead on the morning’s first stage – despite a slow puncture towards the end of the first test.
Rovanperä then won the Elmenteita stage, but only by six tenths from his team-mate to make little impression on the lead.
However he took a healthy bite out of Ogier’s advantage on Sleeping Warrior with another stage win, beating him by 7.7 seconds to trail by 22.1s.
Rovanperä, however, seemed reluctant to risk it all to win.
“I think we could push a bit more, but for sure Seb is pushing a lot for the win but in our head we need to think about the championship as well,” he pointed out.
“I don’t see any need to take any crazy risks.”
Ogier added: “Some sections were very, very slippy and I was very cautious to be honest. It’s so easy to damage anything.”
Esapekka Lappi is an impressive third on his first ever Safari, moving past Elfyn Evans on SS8 when the Toyota driver stopped temporarily after a water-splash.
But Lappi then moved further ahead of the Welshman – setting a strong time on Sleeping Warrior that was 18.7s better than Evans’ effort.
Overall, Lappi is 49.7s ahead of Evans.
“We were never really on the limit but these muddy places… wow! I never experienced something like this before,” Lappi said.
However Evans appeared to be nursing another problem on SS10, being reminded by co-driver Scott Martin towards the end of the stage that service was next.
When Evans arrived at stage-end, it became clear that he had a front-left puncture.
“I don’t think we were having a particularly good stage up to then either, so not ideal.”
Thierry Neuville safely guided his Hyundai through the morning, restarting under super-rally rules at the head of the running order following his suspension failure on Friday afternoon.
He arrived at the end of the Sleeping Warrior with a massive grin on his face.
“I was enjoying it but I have no pressure, I don’t need to push,” he said, before the smile got even wider.
“The guys behind they are going to suffer a lot… they are going to have to push and it won’t be easy.”
Immediately behind him on the road, Jourdan Serderidis, came up with a brilliant description for the stage after arriving at the stop control with front-left damage caused by a tree.
“It’s not Slepping Warrior,” Serderidis said, “it’s Sleeping Hell!”
Fellow M-Sport driver Pierre-Louis Loubet was also in the wars, sliding off and hitting a tree himself.
“On a junction I go straight,” he explained.
“It was not a hard corner but I lose quite a lot of time unfortunately, but my wipers after that were broken so it was terrible.”
Loubet is eighth overall, over 10 minutes down on rally leader Ogier.
Ott Tänak is one position ahead, and was one driver who seemed to enjoy the challenge despite losing washer fluid, and therefore visibility, towards the end of the stage.
“This is proper Safari, how it should be,” he said.
Dani Sordo is a lonely sixth, 1m41.5s up the road from Tänak and 26s adrift of fifth-placed Takamoto Katsuta.
In WRC2, Grégoire Munster has lost his lead to Kajetan Kajetanowicz. The Sleeping Warrior stage was momentarily paused for all cars beyond Ogier for safety reasons, but action quickly restarted and Munster overhauled his rival to move into the overall lead by 7.2s
