Sébastien Ogier has moved into the lead of Safari Rally Kenya, convincingly winning Friday’s opening stage to open up a 9.8-second lead over Toyota team-mate Kalle Rovanperä.
Rovanperä, the defending winner of the Safari, looked to have set the pace on the opening 11.9-mile Loldia stage, beating all of the immediate cars behind him.
But Ogier soon threw his fellow world champion into the shade.
The 2021 Safari winner set a time a strong 7.5s better than Rovanperä’s effort to take charge of the event after stage two.
“There’s a little dampness in there so the grip is fine, quite consistent,” Ogier described. “I tried to have a decent speed but nothing crazy because a long weekend ahead.”
Toyota established a 1-2-3 on the stage, as Elfyn – despite admitting it was “tricky to judge the pace” – dropped just 0.9s to Rovanperä, slotting into fourth overall.
Evans is just 0.3s down on Thierry Neuville who sits third overall for Hyundai, despite not being entirely happy with his start.
“Very difficult, very difficult,” he said.
“We were kicked off the line and we had a big bee in the car so I lost my concentration. I just didn’t have the feeling, it was very shaky in there.”
Neuville was 0.3s slower than Evans on the stage.
Ott Tänak carried a slender 0.1s advantage into the first full day, having pipped fellow world champion Ogier to fastest time on Thursday’s superspecial, but was the first driver this year to encounter some wildlife in his track.
The M-Sport driver came across a herd of zebras midway through the Loldia test, which contributed to him losing 7.7s to the first car on the road, Rovanperä.
“It’s been like driving in a zoo!” said Tänak.
“First we met a pig in the road who was not really going away and then we met a group of zebras who didn’t give a f*** if we were coming or not!”
Tänak fell from first to sixth on SS2, 15.1s down on new leader Ogier and half a second down on Takamoto Katsuta who was fifth fastest.
Dani Sordo had a similar experience to his former team-mate on the second stage as, like Tänak, he also found some interested spectators in his path.
“We take some zebras in the middle of the stage and they were keeping in the road, so we were driving behind them and lost a little bit of time,” Sordo said.
The Hyundai driver is 27.5s down on the lead, 6.3s behind team-mate Esapekka Lappi who described his first proper Safari Rally stage as “a discovery”.
He said: “We stayed on the road all the time, so this is a good start! I didn’t use all the open space where I saw some lines and I was going wrong side of the trees in some places.”
Fellow Safari debutant Pierre-Louis Loubet lost over half a minute on the first outback stage, but revealed he was carrying a mechanical problem aboard his Ford Puma Rally1.
“We have no engine, no power,” Loubet said.
