President William Ruto yesterday flagged off cars for the Shakedown in Naivasha ahead of today’s official start of the 2023 WRC Safari Rally that will start today at Uhuru Park.

The President who was set to leave the country last night for a foreign trip, later went to Ndulele where he spent time watching the cars test the surface, before real business begins today.

Following the culmination of shakedown in Loldia, the cars return to Nairobi for today’s Ceremonial Start and Kasarani Super Special Stage (SSS) which will count as the first speed-test of the 19-stage WRC Safari Rally showpiece.

Thereafter, turbo-charged cars will embark on a challenging terrain which offers a unique race that befits a rally of WRC status of which Kenya returned to after a 19-year hiatus. Deputy Clerk of the Course George Mwangi said the Super Special is the designated viewing area for fans in the city who will not be able to travel to Naivasha for the weekend’s 1192.47km event.

But prior to action proper, spectators will savour some hair-raising thrills by four-time world champion Juha Kankkunen through the 4.8Km twin track at Kasarani.

Kankkunen was one of the best Safari drivers of his generation with a scintillating WRC factory team career which lasted almost for two decades- from 1983 to 2002.

The Flying Finn won 23 world rallies and four drivers’ world championship titles, which were both once records in the series.

Both Sébastien Loeb and Sébastien Ogier have since collected more world titles, but no driver was able to repeat Kankkunen’s feat of becoming a world champion with three different manufacturers until Ogier matched this achievement in 2020.

Kankkunen will be performing some demonstrations on the track with a Toyota pickup as spectators await the rally machines to return from Uhuru Park where the Ceremonial flag-off will take place at 12.46pm.

Mwangi expounded: “Traditionally, recce is done on personal cars, but on the opening stage at Kasarani, teams will see the crews’ recce with their rally cars from 8.30am onwards.”

“Thereafter, they will head to Uhuru Park at 12:46 for the Ceremonial Start. Again, the Ceremonial start will offer fans first-hand experience to see the elegant priority 1 marques here in the country for the seventh leg of the global series.”

“Thereafter, the Super Special at Kasarani will go live on WRC TV from 14:05 onwards. Drivers recced the Naivasha side of the route itinerary on Monday and Tuesday.”

Kalle Rovanperä and Sébastien Ogier – winners of the previous two editions – will both field Toyota GR Yaris cars along with Elfyn Evans and Takamoto Katsuta, the Japanese star twice a podium finisher in Kenya.

Earlier, in a pre-event activity, Champion Rovanperä lined up a Toyota GR Yaris against Africa’s fastest man Ferdinand Omanyala, who savors a personal-best time of 9.77sec in the 100m, an African record.

The stunt is part of Toyota Gazoo Racing’s promotional activities.

Hyundai Motorsport has entered a trio of i20 Ns for Esapekka Lappi, Thierry Neuville and Dani Sordo, while Ott Tänak, Pierre-Louis Loubet and privateer Jourdan Serderidis will pilot M-Sport Ford Pumas.

Kajetan Kajetanowicz tops the WRC2 entry in a Škoda Fabia RS Rally2, while other entrants in the premier support category include Grégoire Munster (Ford Fiesta Rally2) and KCB sponsored Karan Patel (Ford Fiesta R5).

This year’s WRC Safari Rally is sponsored byKCB Bank, Government of Kenya, Talanta Hela, Kenya Wildlife Service and Toyota Kenya Among others.