Takamoto Katsuta and co-driver Aaron Johnston are World Rally Championship event winners – the Toyota pair victorious at Safari Rally Kenya 2026 by 27.4 seconds.
Adrien Fourmaux finished second to record Hyundai’s first podium of the season, with Sami Pajari repeating his Rally Sweden result in third place.
Katsuta remains third in the world championship standings, but he’s closed the gap on Oliver Solberg and series leader Elfyn Evans, both of whom retired on Saturday.
Evans holds an eight-point advantage over Solberg who won Super Sunday and was fastest on the powerstage. Katsuta is three points further back with Fourmaux 19 points off the top.
Katsuta’s Safari got off to a bad start when in the downpour of SS1 Camp Moran, his intercom failed – leaving him without the crucial pacenotes from co-driver Johnston. A double-puncture on Friday dropped him down to seventh overnight before his fightback began.
Choosing a cautious approach and displaying sensible pace on the rugged Saturday morning loop, Katsuta climbed to fourth before his three Toyota team-mates all hit trouble.
Evans, who had been third, picked up two punctures on SS12 which weakened his rear-right suspension. On SS13, it gave up completley leaving the Welshman stranded and into retirement for the first time since 2024.
Solberg led from Ogier, but both GR Yaris Rally1s stopped on the road section back to service with alternator problems, and in Solberg’s case a transmission problem too. Suddenly, Katsuta was into the lead.
From there, he withstood all the pressure to convert his advantage into a maiden WRC win, becoming just the second Japanese driver to do so after the late Kenjiro Shinozuka despite not winning any of the rally’s 20 stages.
An emotional Katsuta couldn’t even stand next to his car for the end-of-stage interview, instead sitting back down again on the rollcage.
“I don’t know what to say. We have so many difficult times, Aaron has worked very hard with me and the team was always believing in me, even when I was failing all the time. Thanks to the whole team, finally we are here because of them and Aaron.
“My family is always a big support for me, this means so much. So many things happened but we are here. Thank you also to Ott [Tänak] who has been contacting me and helping me, even waking up earlier than me every morning. Akio-san, finally we are here so thank you!”
Hyundai battled overheating issues for the first half of the weekend but Fourmaux survived to take his second Safari Rally Kenya podium after finishing third in 2024 for M-Sport.
Pajari lost five minutes on Saturday morning when a rear tire exploded and he picked up another puncture; his eventual deficit to winner Katsuta was 4m26.1s.
Esapekka Lappi drove deliberately slower across the entire weekend so as to survive a rally that had punished him plenty of times in the past. He was rewarded with fourth place – his first points finish in three starts at the Safari.
Team-mate Thierry Neuville had been shadowing Fourmaux but retired on Saturday when he suffered a driveshaft problem.
M-Sport’s Jon Armstrong made the end of the event without retiring, but lost over 20 minutes on two separate stages when an impact damaged a compression strut which he stopped to fix, and then a mechanical problem led to him pulling over to contact the team before continuing. He finished 15th in his Puma.
Fellow Ford runner Josh McErlean endured a catalogue of problems from an overheating engine, a misted windshield, a broken gearbox after an impact that punctured a tire and then finally engine damage too extensive for him to continue on Sunday.
The WRC2 field therefore filled half of the top-10, with Robert Virves denying Gus Greensmith a hat-trick of Safari wins on his first start in Kenya.
The Škoda driver beat Greensmith’s Toyota by 30.3s, with Fau Zaldívar holding in to take the final podium spot by 10.7s over Andreas Mikkelsen. Mikkelsen lost precious ground on SS1 when he ran out of washer fluid to clean his windshield, and then by a puncture on SS7.
Diego Domínguez took a career-best fifth in the category and ninth overall, with Solberg scoring one world championship point for 10th overall despite picking up 20 minutes in penalties for missing two of Saturday’s stages.
