Karan Patel and Taussef Khan showed full intent to claim yet another victory this season with the fastest time of the qualifying stage on Friday.
The Kenyan, in the Ford Fiesta R5 entertained the crowd with his drive in the 3.7 kilometre qualifying stage and with it came with the fastest time of 3mins 50 seconds.
The fastest time from the run gave Patel an advantage to choose his running position for the first day of the rally. And he will run fourth on the road.
However, the Kenyan crew foresees a challenging event in the two days.
“The stages are going to be very technical, caution is needed and any lapse can cause a misfortune.
“The weather has also not been favorable for me, it has been quite hot for me. I don’t know what to expect. And when it rains tomorrow, it will change the whole game,” he told Kawowo Sports.
Patel is currently second on the ARC leaderboard 24points behind leader Leroy Gomes. And his main target will be on closing the gap on his title rival.
“I am here to collect maximum points to get closer to Leroy. He has an advantage over me and that should motivate us to cover up the space in all the remaining ARC event.
“It is with no doubt that we need the ARC title. And how eyes will be on Leroy. Even if I don’t win the event for as long as I am closer to my rival,” he added.
Leroy and Urshlla Gomes posted the second-fastest times to confirm the centre of competition to be between the two crews with R5s.
The crews will cover five stages on leg 1 and four on leg 2.
It would be nice if you could print the list of all the competitors.