There was a lot of talk about Juha Kankkunen’s 1985 Safari Rally win last week. But the famous Finn’s return to the top step of the podium wasn’t the only news line to bridge those four decades.
The other? The roads. Too rough?
In 1985, the Safari organizer was coming under increasing pressure from the governing body to find a smoother path for the future. There was a similar line of questioning in the service park across last weekend.
The feeling from most of the crews was that, on its return to the WRC calendar in 2021, Safari Rally Kenya had pushed the limits in terms of terrain. Quietly, there was a request to dial it down a little. That done, and with the words of encouragement from four-time world rally winning legend Michèle Mouton to bring back the spirit of Safari, the route was roughed up again.
But was it too much?
Watching rear-wheel drive Hyundais, suspension-smashed Pumas and puncture-ridden Toyotas making their way around Lake Naivasha, you might have thought so. And certainly, in the heat of the moment, there was consideration of just that from all corners.
This was too much. A step too far for the Safari.
Talking to the drivers after the finish on Sunday, DirtFish braced itself for an onslaught… that didn’t come.
Fresh from the podium, winner Elfyn Evans offered: “It was extreme, that’s sure. It’s definitely on the limit but… you know, we have one rally of this nature on the calendar. We know what we’re coming to. Maybe we just need a little bit more freedom. Maybe, to have events this rough, we have a bit more flexibility to prepare the car better for it.”
Fair point arguing for more of a Safari specific GR Yaris Rally1.
One step down on the podium, and Ott Tänak was thinking of the limit as well as the cars.
Tänak said a 'Dakar spec' car is needed to traverse the Safari
“The roads were quite on the limit for sure,” said the Estonian. “I mean, yeah, with the rocks and with the fech-fech things, you know, obviously the cars are nuts [we need] quite the Dakar spec which can go through all these kind of conditions. The rallying today is more a sprint version, not what the Dakar used to be previously, so yeah, the sport is a bit different at the moment.”
Pausing for a moment, there was a wry smile.
“But,” he added, “we got through, so we need to be happy.”
His team-mate Thierry Neuville considered a bigger picture, adding: “Was the rally too tough? It’s hard to say. I enjoyed it to be honest, in terms of adventure, what it is, and challenges. It’s the only rally where, sometimes, the co-driver doesn’t read the pacenotes. You watch where you go and he’s cleaning the windscreen, and you still get to the finish and can have a good time.
“No, I enjoyed it. It was hard for the cars, that’s for sure. I don’t know if we are driving too fast or the roads are too rough, it’s hard to say.”
Neuville, for me, is the driver who absolutely hit the nail on the head. The Safari’s not too rough – the very fact that cars far more basic than factory Rally1 machinery made it to Sunday afternoon is evidence that the route was passable.
The bigger question was the speed. The Safari has always been a rally to win as slowly as possible. That’s where the art sits.
Are the roads rougher than they were 40 years ago? Almost certainly not. The difference now is that the crews had 236 miles to compete on. In 1985, that number was 3,210 miles – on open roads across five full days and with no service restrictions.
If you broke a driveshaft or a gearbox, shipped five minutes in a section, it wasn’t the end of the world (unless it was the final day) because you had time to fight back and a team ready to rebuild your car on the spot.
Avoiding any kind of mechanical issue was all-but impossible in Kenya last week – the crucial thing was to do your best to assert some sort of control over when that issue might arrive and how significant it might be. Evans drove beautifully for four days, but still had an alternator belt fail as well as an intercom failure and punctures. His decision to take a middle of road approach to Sunday, allied to the diligence of the Toyota team, was what allowed him to capitalise.
And there is no appetite from the manufacturers to allow further modification to the cars either – and I see no need.
“Look at Toyota,” pointed out Cyril Abiteboul, Hyundai Motorsport president and team principal. “They managed to make it work in the limits, in the frame of the current regulation. If they make it work, we have no excuse not to make it work.”
As we’ve said on numerous occasions, the drivers are the ultimate arbiters of the speed with which they hit a rock or a compression.
Good fortune undoubtedly plays its part, but the Safari is an event which has always set the head against the heart like no other rally can.
Long may that continue.
