WRC
Safari Rally 2025 – Kenya values its reputation
Will the Yaris still be imperial during the longest round of the 2025 championship? The answer will be in March. (Photo: Nikos Katikis/DPPI)
There are traditions that deserve to be respected. Even if it will remain far from the extremes it was able to reach in the 70s and 80s, the Safari Rally is already shaping up to be the longest event on the 2025 calendar. With its 21 special stages and its 384,86 km timed, the 73e edition will appear as an exception in a program where the organizers tend to want to reduce their itinerary. Located near Lake Naivasha, less than a hundred kilometers north of the capital Nairobi, the event will be integrated for the 5e times in a row in the championship after an 18-year absence (2002 to 2021).
The Kenyans have kept what worked in previous years with a shakedown on Wednesday while it usually takes place on Thursday everywhere else. Its location will however be different since instead of going towards Loldia to the northwest of the service park, the competitors will go south to the Sleeping Warrior sector. Thursday will traditionally be devoted to the start ceremony which is always very formal in Nairobi before the now well-known Kasarani superspecial (4,76 km) at the gates of the city where the public is more numerous each year. The first new feature of 2025 will be the addition of a 2e section on Thursday returning to the Naivasha service park. With its 8,15 km, the Mzabibu SS will allow competitors to have a tiny taste of what awaits them.
The rest will be fairly classic with sectors that have already been used in previous years: Loldia (19,11 km), Geothermal (13,12 km) or Kedong (15,10 km). Will they be as selective as in the past? Will Elmenteita (17,31 km) or Soysambu (29,32 km) be hit by storms that are as sudden as they are violent? To make things even more difficult, the organizers have introduced a new special of 32,20 km. Run twice, Camp Moran (SS3-7) will launch the Friday loops and could well prove decisive.
First event of the season on clay, Kenya should not establish a hierarchy on this surface, because the exercise is far too specific. After 4 consecutive successes of Toyota, the team Hyundai Will she be able to contradict Japanese hegemony in this event?
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Loïc ROCCI
Journalist specializing in rallying past, present and future... and with a southern accent
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Letourneur
04/01/2025 at 01:01 a.m.
Kenya in WRC rally, race which is run for most of the specials in parks or reserves, with multitudes of wild animals, what are these daddy's boys doing with their money and their overpowered cars in these protected places? There are thousands of km of dirt roads in Kenya, so why race in the parks?
Smolders
03/01/2025 at 01:21 a.m.
I hope to be there, I am looking for travel suggestions