It’s easy to see why the Safari Rally in Kenya is touted by drivers and team principles alike as the toughest race on the World Rally Championship calendar.
There’s always something unique about the continent we live in and it’s no different at the pinnacle of rally racing.
Just moving the racing circus requires an enormous amount of logistics with the top teams like Toyota Gazoo Racing, Hyundai N Sport and Ford M Sport headquarters mostly located in Europe.
It’s a combination of ships, trucks and aeroplanes that have to be coordinated to arrive in Naivasha, Kenya in the Great Rift Valley, about 100 kilometres from the capital Nairobi, loaded with staff, cars, spares, helicopters, catering, medical necessities and everything else required for a gruelling four day spectacle.
And if you’ve ever travelled in Africa you know that roads aren’t always in pristine condition, traffic is often a nightmare and armed security officials can be a menace also.
We attended the event with Toyota South Africa as part of a local media contingent that sped between stages to witness it first hand, and you can witness some of the action in the video below.
The most difficult part of entering Kenya was having to leave the desk to get a yellow fever vaccination while visa and FIA accreditation applications were done online.
The passport officials, as are the rest of the Kenyans, are friendly and helpful which, we witnessed when the extended Land Cruiser we travelled in had a bumper bashing on the way to our accommodation at the Great Rift Valley Lodge.
During the commotion locals were obviously interested in a group of 13 foreigners milling around waiting for the admin to be sorted and we were greeted with smiles when we told them where we were from. “Fellow Africans,” quipped one.
Driving though means you’re often taking your life in your own hands with trucks, buses, taxis, motorbikes and cars passing into oncoming traffic and if that doesn’t work passing with two wheels on the dirt on the left hand side.
It had our Belgian WRC host on his first visit to Africa almost apoplectic.
But we were there to see WRC1 cars in action and day one would see us in the Olkaria area in the heartland of Kenya’s geothermal region.
The area is covered with kilometres of pipes, generating units and steam billowing everywhere and according to Wikipedia they have 891.8MW of installed geothermal capacity and by 2030 aim to have 5 530MW of geothermal power or 51% of total capacity.
Nonetheless the magnificent howls, blips, dust and anti-lag to minimise turbo lag, especially at 2 200 metres above sea level, kept us enthralled as the field came past.
From here a visit to the service park to see the Toyota Gazoo Racing support team in action first hand.
The WRC Gazoo Racing team has more than 200 staff that look after the smallest detail whether it's in the field or keeping things running back at HQ.
Teams have a maximum of 40 minutes between stages in which to repair any damage the cars may have picked up along the route.
And because of the rough terrain there’s a lot of that.
Each of the four cars has their own squad of mechanics and specialists moving around the Rally Yaris like bees around the queen bee.
They're allowed to do almost everything except replace the engine and they’ll replace suspension, cross members, control arms, underbody protection, tyres, transfer cases and anything else needed for maximum efficiency within the 40 minutes.
It’s an impressive sight to be sure, including the amount of duct tape needed.
During a briefing by Toyota Team Principal Jari-Matti Latvala he highlighted a few interesting points around the WRC cars that finished in the first four places when the final stage was completed late Sunday afternoon.
Teams are allowed only 28 tyres per event and depending on the conditions Toyota will fit tyres accordingly. They also weigh them before and afterwards to determine the wear to see if and how they can use them again.
Modern rallying is as technical as motorsport can be and even things like checking on the dust conditions determines how the deflection vents and ducts are placed to keep the cockpit as dust free as possible.
Once the cars are out on the next stage the mechanics move to the covered dining room to watch the live feed of their charges and the technical team sit glued to their laptops checking telemetry analysis and data at the other end of the service area.
Compare this to rally ace “Flying Finn” Juha Kankkunen whose antics in his Toyota Celica are the stuff of legend when they would race the Safari rally over 3 500 kilometres on open roads!
“Sure, we were a bit crazy in those days,” he joked when we asked him about it.
Apart from using sustainable fuel WRC cars have to have a hybrid element as the sport looks to a greener future.
Power boost is activated by the throttle and further boosts are unlocked through regeneration under braking. Drivers have to regenerate 30 kilojoules of energy before another boost is granted.
Determined by the FIA and race organisers drivers have to navigate parts of road sections and around the service park in full EV mode.
It has a range of 20 kilometres while its 3.9kWh battery, producing up to 750V can be plugged in and recharged in the service park within 30 minutes.
Because rally cars are constantly changing direction and bounce around like a jack in the box the hybrid unit can withstand an impact of 70G.
Also impressive is how the Kenyan public took to the rally.
They thronged the stages in their thousands cheering the cars loudly, capturing the action on their phones and testing the military security to the limit so much so that one stage had to be cancelled after the WRC1 cars had passed because they were a danger to themselves and the drivers in the rest of the field which included their national championship cars.
What struck us at the spectator points was how clean they were left afterwards. Bags are placed around the area and believe it or not, everyone throws their rubbish into them. There was nary a packet, broken glass or empty bottle left behind for the environmental teams to pick up afterwards.
To watch the drivers tear around the route at 200km/h in a cloud of dust with engines at maximum revs provides a few heart-stopping moments, just when you think they’re braking too late or turning too early, they bring it all under control and glide the cars around like it was an everyday trip to the mall.
Keep in mind too that unlike track drivers they don’t have the luxury of doing laps to memorise the course. There are no apexes, kitty litter or run off areas.
When things go wrong it’s going to hurt because it will be a tree, rock or in the case of Kenya, a wild animal that will stop your progression and it takes a while for the medical helicopter to get there.
They’re a special breed, rally drivers and their navigators, and with the top four spots in the Safari Rally the Toyota Gazoo Racing WRC team were just a little bit extra special.