Sébastien Ogier has become the first man to win a World Rally Championship stage in Africa for 19 years as he won the opening Kasarani superspecial on Thursday ahead of his two Toyota team-mates.
Ogier, Kalle Rovanperä and Elfyn Evans each won their respective heats on the three-mile stage but Ogier – who raced and beat Ott Tänak by 2.5 seconds – was quickest of all by 0.3s from Rovanperä; Evans a further 0.4s adrift.
“Tomorrow’s going to be the biggest start,” said Ogier. “It’s been amazing to see the big crowd. So far so good but the real stuff starts tomorrow.”
His on-stage rival Tänak was the quickest of the Hyundai drivers, 2.5s clear of his team-mate Thierry Neuville who competed head-to-head with Evans.
Crews are expected to almost exclusively use their hard tires this weekend given the high-speed nature of several of the tests, so Tänak was left pleased with his decision to use softs on his Hyundai for the superspecial.
Photo: Hyundai Motorsport
“This one was quite slippy,” he said. “We used the soft tire so we have some good tire now so should be OK.”
Despite Tänak’s decent speed, the Hyundais seemed to be struggling with understeer. Oliver Solberg could be heard complaining about it to co-driver Aaron Johnston on the intercom after the stage, while Dani Sordo appeared to run wide early in the test as he disappeared from the TV helicopter’s camera shot.
Solberg was only eighth quickest – despite beating M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux in their heat – while Sordo finds himself outside the top 10 in 11th spot, already 10.5s shy of the lead.
Takamoto Katsuta and Gus Greensmith’s heat was the closest as Toyota junior Katsuta got the better of M-Sport’s Greensmith by just 0.5s. Katsuta is sixth and Greensmith therefore seventh overall, respectively 5.6s and 6.1s off the rally lead.
Lorenzo Bertelli raced the sole WRC2 entrant of Martin Prokop in his heat and lies ninth overall, 0.6s ahead of the works M-Sport Fiesta of Fourmaux.
Leading positions after SS1
1 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota) 3m21.5s
2 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) +0.3s
2 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +0.7s
4 Ott Tänak/ Martin Järveoja (Hyundai) +2.5s
5 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +5.0s
6 Takamoto Katsuta/Daniel Barritt (Toyota) +5.6s
7 Gus Greensmith/Chris Patterson (M-Sport Ford) +6.1s
8 Oliver Solberg/Aaron Johnston (Hyundai) +7.9s
9 Lorenzo Bertelli/Simone Scattolin (M-Sport Ford) +9.0s
10 Adrien Fourmaux/Renaud Jamoul (M-Sport Ford) +9.6s
