Kalle Rovanpera signed a perfect morning, that of the first stage of the Safari Rally 2024, winning all three special stages scheduled for today's first lap and this put him firmly at the top of the general classification of the third event of the World Rally Championship which began last January in Monte Carlo.
The reigning 2-time world champion wants to make up for it after his bitter retirement in Sweden last month and got off to a great start, making perfect use of the best possible starting position to enhance his driving skills and the goodness he has proven many times of the Toyota GR Yaris Rally1.
Rovanpera won on Loldia 1, on Geothermal 1 and on Kedong 1 (the longest test of the tour and of the day which will be repeated in the Kenyan afternoon), putting everyone in line and making things clear: who will want to try to win this edition of the Safari will have to take enormous risks until the final test on Sunday.
Not that his opponents didn't try, because behind him Esapekka Lappi and Ott Tanak set very respectable times, but in the last test of the morning Rovanpera made the difference, trailing both by over 15 seconds.
The Finn and the Estonian from Hyundai Motorsport are respectively 15″5 and 16″8 from the top, but both firmly on the podium. Behind them, in fact, the fight is limited to fourth place, with Takamoto Katsuta, Elfyn Evans and Thierry Neuville all close to fighting for first position at the foot of the Top 3.
At the moment the Japanese is the leader of the aforementioned trio, but Elfyn Evans is 1.8 seconds behind his teammate despite a set-up that is very far from his preferences, so much so that he complained about it at every test completed this morning.
However, things went worse for Thierry Neuville. The world championship leader, who today is forced to open all the tests and therefore enter the special stage in the worst possible position, first ruined his right rear tire during SS3, Geothermal 1, touching a rock that delimited the route , then, in the following test, he had to deal with the loss of the hybrid's assistance, however limiting the damage with a courageous performance.
The Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrids were far behind, with Adrien Fourmaux managing to stay with the best in today's first two tests, however losing several seconds on SS4 and finishing over 1 minute and 14 seconds behind Rovanpera. Gregoire Munster, as expected, confirms himself far from all his colleagues at the wheel of a Rally1: the Dutchman has little experience and certainly not the talent to be a real factor during this season.
As regards WRC2, it is worth mentioning that Gus Greensmith is already dominating due to his own merits, of course, but also due to various problems involving his rivals. Oliver Solberg had to stop on SS4 to replace a damaged tyre, while Kajetan Kajetanowicz had to slow down again in today's final test due to a mechanical failure on his Skoda Fabia RS Rally2.
The morning lap of the first stage of the 2024 Safari Rally ends here. Now the drivers will be able to take advantage of the mid-day service to prepare the cars for the afternoon lap which will always take place on the same three tests already tackled this morning. The event will resume with Special Stage 5, the 19.17 kilometer Loldia 2. The first car, the Hyundai i20 N Rally1 of Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe, will enter the stage at 11.48 am Italian time.
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