Toyota’s Elfyn Evans clinched a second win of the World Rally Championship season to boost his title hopes after surviving the toughest Safari Rally since the event rejoined the calendar.
Evans and co-driver Scott Martin emerged from a gruelling 21-stage rally of attrition with victory by 1m09.9s from Hyundai’s Ott Tanak. Reigning world champion Thierry Neuville recovered to third, 3m32.0s off Evans, to mark Hyundai’s best-ever Safari result.
Evans’ victory was the first for a British driver at the Safari Rally since Colin McRae’s triumph in 2002. It came during an event where WRC drivers remained silent at stage-end interviews until the Power Stage in response to the FIA’s clampdown on drivers using inappropriate language.
While Toyota maintained its 100% winning record in Kenya since its WRC return in 2021, it was far from plain sailing for Evans and the Japanese brand.
This year’s extended 384km edition of the event provided a blend of brutal roads and wild weather, testing drivers and machines to the limit. Evans was the only Rally1 driver to avoid a major mechanical issue during the event, but it wasn’t easy for the Welshman.
Evans led the rally after winning Thursday’s super special stage in Kenya’s capital Nairobi but dropped to fifth after stage two. Evans quickly shot up the leaderboard to sit second, 24.4s behind Tanak, who dominated Friday morning by winning three of the four stages.
The lead changed on stage nine when Tanak’s i20 N, running without the 2025 upgrades, suffered a driveshaft failure that promoted Evans to the lead. Evans was never headed despite suffering two punctures, and a couple of spins when torrential rain created some of the worst conditions in the event’s history on Saturday.
There was then a brief scare on Sunday morning when Evans’ Toyota developed an issue which was fixed on a road section.
Evans opted not to attack for Super Sunday and Power Stage points but still left the event with 27 points to move into a 36-point lead over Neuville - the biggest margin for a driver after three rounds in WRC history.
Tanak’s driveshaft issue initially dropped the 2019 world champion to third, 55.4s from the lead, as Toyota’s Kalle Rovanpera climbed to second, 7.7s behind Evans.
However, Rovanpera’s rally began to unravel on Saturday morning when the two-time Safari winner picked up two punctures, the second coming from hitting a rock while leaving the road to avoid a herd of zebras.
Another collision with a rock in the waterlogged stage 14 [Sleeping Warrior] damaged his Toyota’s left-rear suspension, prompting a makeshift repair with the use of ratchet straps. The Finn dropped more than six minutes nursing his car back to service in fifth position. Rovanpera’s hope of securing vital championship points were quashed on Sunday when an alternator issue forced him into retirement. Rovanpera’s demise helped Tanak recover to second despite battling a misting windscreen and a puncture on Saturday.
Neuville inherited third after a chaotic start to the rally for the defending champion that began with a 20-second loss to a driveshaft issue on stage two. Hyundai opted to change the transmission as a precaution which meant Neuville was late arriving to stage 3 and was hit with a one-minute penalty. A jump start in stage 5, followed by a late check into stage eight due to a cooling issue, meant Neuville accumulated two minutes’ worth of time penalties.
Neuville, who was also battling illness, was able to survive a wild Saturday and Sunday’s final stages to claim third. Team-mate Adrien Fourmaux salvaged the maximum 10 points on Super Sunday after an electrical issue forced him to retire on Thursday, which was followed by broken suspension that ruled him out of Friday.
Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta appeared on course to finish a commendable fourth after battling through a bout of food poisoning and delays caused by six punctures through the event. Katsuta displayed stunning pace in the wet and was on course to snatch third before the last of his puncture struck on stage 16. However, a dramatic roll on the final stage resulted in him crawling to the end of the final stage in fifth, 8m15.7s back, but it is unclear if he will reach the final time control.
Sami Pajari duly inherited fourth on Safari debut for Toyota after being among the drivers struck by punctures.
Gregoire Munster led M-Sport-Ford’s charge, running as high as third on Thursday before a series of punctures, a suspension failure and a gearbox issue resulted in the Luxembourger recovering to sixth, 11m35.3s off the win. Team-mate Josh McErlean sat fourth on Friday but finished outside of the points-paying positions in 11th after losing almost 30 minutes while repairing a broken steering arm on Saturday.
Seventh-placed Gus Greensmith took the WRC2 honours from Jan Solans after title favourite Oliver Solberg retired when his Skoda became stuck in the fesh-fesh sand on stage seven.
