On the face of it, Jon Armstrong is making no sense. Give him a minute and the M-Sport Ford driver is absolutely right: the Safari Rally is just like Monte Carlo.
Armstrong starts his first Kenyan adventure this week and that’s given the Puma Rally1 driver a fresh insight into the challenge which sits ahead. Typically, he’s thought it through and come up with a real insight.
“For me,” he said, “from what I’ve seen, it’s almost like Monte. If you think of the way you approach it, it’s about pacing yourself based on where it’s slippery and muddy and then being ready to [push] when it’s clear.
“A lot of this is about the experience. It’s a rough event, but the pace it still very flat-out and then you need to be careful in some places.”
With testing not permitted no location in Africa, M-Sport prepared for the third round of the season in Cumbria – with Armstrong and team-mate Josh McErlean driving the test Puma and getting their hands dirty building their own Safari entry cars in England’s north-west.
“We have done a test in Greystoke [forest],” Armstrong told DirtFish. “It’s not the same as here, but this is my first event with the car on gravel and it was good to drive the car on the same set-up that we have here – we ran the very high ride height and we actually end up getting some good ruts on that test day.
“Back at Dovenby, we built the Puma – the car we’re using for this rally – from all the suspension parts, putting those into the car. But then when the car was finished we got it on the ground and then went through changing stuff, starting from being on its wheels to using all the tool kit that we have in the car.
“That’s valuable, but it’s always so different whenever you do that when you’re maybe stuck in the or on gravel and everything’s hot and dirty. It’s not good whenever you know you do break the car on an actual event, but then when you try to fix it, it’s in the same conditions. So it’s all experience.”
Armstrong built the car he's rallying this week back in M-Sport's workshop
While Armstrong remains respectful of the Safari Rally’s reputation, he’s also aware of the need for speed.
He added: “I’ve been sort of toying with myself that I need to keep a good rhythm, keep a good pace, don’t be too relaxed that you can drive around and take it carefully. The cars are very reliable so, yeah, you still have to push.
“Preparation-wise it’s been hard because the stages stayed the same year-in-year-out since 2021. We don’t have the knowledge of them. I want to gain that knowledge and we’re not going to do that at the side of the road.”
