The Safari Rally has always been a one-of-a-kind event. Since it returned to the WRC calendar (2021) it has had comparable lengths to those of the other events that make up the season, but things could change soon. Or rather, they could go back to how they once were.
The intention of the promoters of what has become the third round of the 2024 WRC, moving from June to March, is to check with the FIA and the promoters of the World Championship the possibility of returning to having a much longer Safari than the current one, which to date has 367.76 timed kilometers, bringing it back to the glories of the past.
The president of Kenya, Williams Samoei Ruto, is pushing this return to the past. Over the weekend hosting the 2024 Safari Rally, the president of the host state made his intentions clear.
“The current Safari Rally lasts 4 days, but we would like to return to the old tradition of longer distances. I have instructed our Minister of Sports, Ababu Namwamba, to start engaging the FIA and the WRC promoter on the possibilities of a new version of the Safari, a much longer one.”
David Richards, a member of the working group that the FIA has set up to think about the future of the WRC, said that motorsport's governing body is open to anything when it comes to proposals related to the format of future events.
“We're trying to give organizers more space and freedom to develop the rallies that are right for them,” Richards told several media outlets, including Motorsport.com earlier this month.
“With the Safari set in Kenya, they wanted to go outside Nairobi and have a second base in Mombasa, for example, and do something like that. Let's look at their proposals and see if they can be adapted. We're not saying yes or no, but we're certainly saying let's look at these ideas and see if they work for the WRC.”
“At the moment I think we are too rigid. We have created a formula that everyone has had to work hard for and I think that is not necessarily in the interests of the World Rally Championship.”
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