Esapekka Lappi’s propshaft has broken yet again on Safari Rally Kenya, as Kalle Rovanperä slashed Sébastien Ogier’s Safari Rally Kenya lead.
On his first visit to the famous event, Lappi had been running a strong third halfway through Saturday, but was forced to park up and retire on the first stage of the afternoon when his propshaft let go.
It was a recurrence of a problem the Finn encountered on Wednesday’s shakedown test, where Lappi was twice halted by a broken propshaft.
Hyundai readied Lappi’s car for Sunday’s six stages and he restarted the final leg as the first car on the road, but the propshaft on his i20 N Rally let go yet again.
Arriving to the end of SS14 of 19 Melewa having lost over 40 seconds, Lappi explained: “The propshaft is broken already, so I don’t know is there any sense [to continue].”
Asked when it happened, Lappi replied: “3km before the finish. I took it slowly, but…”
Lappi made it out of the stage, and initially started driving the wrong way on the road section but turned his Hyundai around and will start the next stage, SS15.
Out front, Ogier held a 16.7 second lead over fellow world champion Rovanperä ahead of Sunday’s leg, but Rovanperä beat Ogier by 8.1s to close to just 8.6s behind the leader.
“Yeah… for someone playing the championship, it was a nice talk,” Ogier remarked.
“There were huge rocks on the road, I nearly had to stop because there were massive rocks on the line. No worries.”
Rovanperä added: “I don’t think the others are really trying much, let’s see.”
Toyota still holds a 1-2-3-4, but Takamoto Katsuta has closed to 11.4s behind Elfyn Evans after a half-spin for the Welshman.
“We just got caught in a dried rut and it completely spun us out of the blue, so just a little half-spin,” Evans explained.
