Kalle Rovanperä’s great rally season continued in the Kenyan race over the weekend.
Rovanperä celebrated the conquest of Safari with his co-driver Jonne Halttunen. Zumawire / MVPhotos
The young Toyota star already grabbed his fourth victory of the season by taking the legendary Safari Rally in just over 50 seconds before his teammate Elfyn Evansia.
– The feeling is undeniably awesome. This was a big win for us. Safari is a special kind of competition and it’s awesome to get your own name among the winners of this race. This rally has always been important to Toyota as well, Kalle Rovanperä glowed to Iltalehti.
Rough Kenyan gravel roads hit the driver pairs hard. Rovanperä was still tormented on Saturday by some kind of belly, which took away.
– I don’t know what was wrong yesterday. There was no energy at all in the day care. I heard pretty much everyone else had the same thing. When you come to such a country, there can always be some minor health concerns. Fortunately, I was feeling better today, Rovanperä said.
– It was definitely the hardest race I’ve ever ridden. There was a different circumstance all the time, which required a lot of concentration and care.
Flawless competition
Rovanperä drove almost the entire race flawlessly. During Thursday’s special stage in Nairobi, Rovanperä was close to running out of the opening bend and suffered a puncture as a result. After that, the Finnish driver did not make mistakes.
– This race was not so horrible now, but really difficult and very challenging. On the stretches of sand, the car was only forced to keep moving or it would otherwise be stuck. There were many different situations, Rovanperä summed up.
– Normally you only have to focus on driving as hard as possible. The most important thing here is to just survive the snippets through. Of course, some sections were able to push a little.
Toyota eventually won a quadruple victory in Kenya. After Rovanperä and Evans Takamoto Katsuta took the third and Sebastien Ogier fourth place.
The World Rally Championship will continue in mid-July in Estonia. Rovanperä defends the victory of the ultra-fast gravel rally.
In the World Series, Rovanperä is already 65 points ahead of Hyundai Thierry Neuvillea.