Safari Rally: Louis Louka: “It's very instinctive, you have to be creative.

What did you think of your first experience in this event?

I really like the story of rally, so leaving Kenya was a great moment. I recently saw a video again from the end of the 2000s where they were doing 110 km specials and where Stéphane Prévôt explained that he had 7 notebooks. With Sweden, it's my favorite event.

What did you like?

I find this so unusual. It is one of the rare rounds to always offer a notion of endurance which we tend to lose in our sport unfortunately because of the formats used. I appreciate having to ride with your head and not constantly at 110%. The current cars are so solid that the “hazard” aspect has disappeared in the other events, but still remains in the Safari where robust equipment is required. It's quite a challenge for manufacturers and I'm really excited about it!

With a year of experience, how did you prepare it?

I did a great job as a scribe (laughing). The course is 85% identical to last year so we will take the notes again. I'm wary though. Even though I don't have a lot of practice there, I think the terrain is changing quickly and if in 2023 we go to the right of a hole, we may have to use the left track. The season is also not the same and this could have an impact on the condition of the roads. The boxes in the road book are the same, but I think I will be able to redo entire pages of my notebook. It's such an atypical round that it also requires specific vocabulary.

What do you have in particular in your notebooks?

There is in particular the fesh-fech which we do not encounter elsewhere. Grégoire wants the words to be as short as possible and if possible of one syllable, I just say “fech”. We also tried to grade certain brittle portions and this resulted: “ brittle "," very brittle " and " super brittle ", but it wasn't very telling. We settle for a “ brittle » which means it's extreme and you have to ride slowly. In certain big holes, we put the gear ratio to negotiate it, even if it is complicated to estimate it during reconnaissance. You still have to improvise a bit depending on what you see. It's very instinctive, you have to be creative and it's sometimes artisanal. For a co-driver, it's a great challenge because it often goes very fast and it's not easy to find your way during the race.

In your opinion, what pace should be adopted to reach the finish?

Last year, when we were in WRC2, I was surprised by the speeds reached. It was much faster than I had imagined. I looked at the cameras of the Rally1 crews and I have the impression that they are racing normally, they are not calculating anything and they are hoping that this will do it… So, I don't know what to answer. As we are still in a learning phase with Rally1, I think our approach will be more conservative to make sure we accumulate the kilometers.