Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala says his squad won’t change its approach to next week’s Safari Rally Kenya despite Hyundai’s flying start to the season.
While the Korean manufacturer was busy rewriting its own history by winning the first two rounds of the season for the first time, Latvala is marshalling a patient approach from the GR Yaris Rally1 crews.
Toyota lands into Kenya with an outstanding Safari record, having won all three Naivasha-based events since Africa returned to the WRC calendar in 2021. Latvala pointed to the foundations for that success as a source of confidence going into round three.
“I’m looking forward to the event,” he told DirtFish. “Of course, now the timing is different because it’s a rainy season, so it’s going to be quite a big challenge. But I think the reliability has been one of our strengths, which is, of course, good going to this event.
Sébastien Ogier led home a Toyota 1-2-3-4 in Kenya last year
“We need to be patient over there because the first two events for the season haven’t been going the way we hoped. The Safari is a rally where I think we really want to bounce back. If we look to Sweden, we know the car was quick and the drivers were very confident before the rally – all the preparations and the pre-event testing had gone really well. But then there were some mistakes from the drivers which came with a high consequence.
“As a team, one of the positives for me in Sweden, was that we did all we could. We couldn’t have done better. And when you look at the speed on the final day, that was a really, really good recovery.
“Elfyn [Evans] in particular is really taking the best from the new regulations. He’s been consistent, but then on Sunday he was able to attack when the points are there. He’s done really well on that, he’s the strategic, thinking driver.
“I think overall, we knew this year was going to be tougher and more difficult than the previous three years – but this just inspires us and pushes us harder as a team. You need to respect winning, this is not something which is coming automatically.”
