It is all system go in the Mountain Gorilla Rally Rwanda after crews booked their starting order for leg one.
As the fifth round of the Africa Rally Championship, the Rwanda Rally revved off with crews taking on a tarmac stage in the shakedown and qualifying stages at the Kigali Convention Centre on Friday.
Kenya’s Karan Patel in the Ford Fiesta rally 2 smoothly went through with the fastest time which guaranteed him priority to choose his desired starting order.
Jas Mangat in the Hyundai i20 was one second behind Patel while Yasin Nasser in the Ford Fiesta was three seconds down on Karan.
“The plan always is to have a foot down as much as possible. And tomorrow we want to have a clean drive and keep it fast,” says Patel.
Patel chose to start as car number five while his country-mate Hamza Anwar will be first on the road.
Tanzania’s Prince Charles Nyerere will follow Anwar with Yasin Nasser and Jas Mangat following in that order.
Eight stages covering a competitive distance of 124.4 kilometres will be run on Saturday.