What made Toyota’s Safari strategy so effective?

Our SPIN, The Rally pod team examine which drivers adopted the best strategy on a very challenging rally

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Rallies as rough and menacing as last weekend’s Safari Rally Kenya require a completely different mindset to what’s up next in the World Rally Championship – Rally Estonia.

It’s not so much about maximizing corner exit speed, but instead all about avoiding the damaging rock, hole or zebra at the apex.

It’s a fairly safe and obvious conclusion to reach that Toyota’s Kalle Rovanperä was the one who mastered this the best given he won the rally by 52.8s over team-mate Elfyn Evans – but he’s not necessarily the only one who played his tactics right.

Thierry Neuville promised to copy and paste his strategy from 2021 – did that work? Craig Breen meanwhile spent more time on the brake pedal than he did the throttle as he adopted an ultra-cautious approach to simply make the end on his first visit to Africa.

Who got it right? And who didn’t? Listen to this week’s SPIN, The Rally Pod to find out.

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