The third leg of the Safari Rally Kenya lived up to its billing as the more challenging and unpredictable day of the whole event.
On top of the water splashes and rough stages, the weather threw in a rather tougher test with a downpour on the last section.
But Toyota Gazoo’s Sebastien Ogier yet again survived the Safari’s troubles; first, a slow puncture on stage eight and later two more slow punctures as he went through the last stage that had turned muddy and slippery due to the rain.
Ogier lost 15 seconds in the day’s final stage. That narrowed his lead to 16.7 seconds over teammate Kalle Rovampera heading into the final day.
“The most important thing is we are in the lead. It was a question of bad luck, basically with the same luck as Kalle I would have had 30 or 40 seconds easy. But the most important thing is we are here,” said Ogier.
“It was about surviving in the last stage. We took it easy trying to manage,” he added.
Ogier is now set for a neck-and-neck contest with Kalle on Sunday in the fight for the Safari rally win
“It was an interesting day, I was hoping to have a bit of rain to spice up things a bit. On the dry for sure Seb was pushing hard and I didn’t want to take any more risks than I was taking.
“The final stage was quite tricky, we just wanted to stay on the road and we did quite a good run-through,” said Kalle.
Elfyn Evans and Takamoto Katsuta are the other Toyota crews in the fight for the podium spot. Only 16.7 seconds separate the teammates after exchanging positions through Saturday’s leg. However, the battle maintains Toyota’s dominance in 1-2-3-4 positions.
Dani Sordo remains the only Hyundai crew still in the race after Esapekka Lappi retired on stage 12 with shaft failure.
M-Sport Ford’s Ott Tanak’s Safari misery continued. He suffered a puncture, losing time on the front pack. He is currently running sixth, more than 8 minutes behind the leader Ogier.
In WRC2, Kajetan Kajetanowicz claimed the lead after Grégoire Munster retired on the day. Martin Prokop moved to second with Kenya’s Carl Tundo completing the top three.
Six stages will be covered on Sunday.