Sebastien Ogier, an eight-time world champion, has claimed his third win of the partial WRC campaign by defeating his Toyota teammate and championship leader, Kalle Rovanpera, by 6.7 seconds in Kenya. Ogier led the event from stage two but encountered a series of problems that threatened to derail his victory hopes. Despite these issues, Ogier won four of the six stages on Friday but experienced a loss of hybrid power, costing him time. On Saturday, he suffered three punctures, including a double front puncture during stage 13 when heavy rain created chaos. This, combined with a charging Rovanpera, reduced Ogier’s commanding 32.0-second lead to 16.7 seconds heading into Sunday.
Rovanpera applied more pressure to halve the deficit again on Sunday’s first stage, before Ogier clipped a tree, removing the entire spoiler and tailgate of his GR Yaris. Ogier responded by winning the next stage, but his car began to overheat after ingesting Kenya’s famous fesh fesh sand in the penultimate stage. In the final stage, a rock smashed his windscreen, but it failed to rob him of a hard-fought victory.
Ogier stated that he was unsure whether it would be enough to win until the last finish line, and even the stone in the last kilometres almost damaged his radiator. He added that he had rarely had to fight like this, fighting against all the issues he had to face, including Kalle’s great speed. Ogier’s victory headed an impressive Toyota 1-2-3-4 completed by Elfyn Evans and Takamoto Katsuta. This is the second year in succession that Toyota has achieved this feat in Kenya, following an identical triumph recorded in 1993.
Toyota boss Jari-Matti Latvala was surprised to repeat last year’s result but attributed the success to lessons learned from Toyota’s strong pedigree at the event in the 1980s and 1990s. He said that they have an excellent team of people, a reliable and strong car, and drivers who have the patience in this event to drive in a clever way. Latvala added that this is a combination of driving fast but also slowing down for the rough places and understanding the history of this event, and coming with the right philosophy has achieved this result. He thanked everybody and said that the history of what Toyota has from the 80s and 90s of this event is making them stronger.
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