KCB racing team driver Karan Patel and his navigator Tauseef Khan have their eyes set on the Rwanda Mountain Gorilla Rally slated for September 22 to 24.

The duo were crowned the winners of the 4th leg of the African Rally Championship (ARC) dubbed Rallye International du Burundi over the weekend.

Currently, they sit third in the African Rally Championship (ARC) leaderboard with 60 points after the weekend’s victory in Burundi.

Speaking after his win, Karan Patel said: “I am very happy to clinch this victory against some of the best drivers on the continent. My navigator Tauseef was alert all through ensuring I was on top of my game up until the last stretch. We want to build on this win going forward even as we prepare for Rwanda’s Mountain Gorilla Rally set for next month.”

In his Ford Fiesta rally2, Patel did not let the foot loose even after securing a commanding lead into the final leg on Sunday. He consolidated his already sublime race winning five of the six stages of the day. He sealed the victory by five minutes, 57 seconds. Patel’s victory serves as a motivation boost for the KCB driver who retired during the 2023 WRC Safari Rally in Naivasha following car issues that jeopardized his quest for a podium finish.

“Being the first competitive race since the WRC Safari Rally, I think we have showcased that our comeback is greater than the setback we encountered. We want to keep preparing the car ensuring that all the parts are fixed because we are going all out for the championship,” added Patel.

The Moil rallying team is sitting at the summit of the ARC standings with 78 points, Jas Mangat and Joseph Kamya are currently second with 63 points. After the Rwanda Mountain Gorilla Rally next month, the championship will head to Zambia in October.

Meanwhile, the Škoda-driving Swede has won almost twice as many stages as his nearest rival and led for longer than anybody else through 2023, but no-scores in Sardinia and Estonia have hit his title tilt hard. He trails Andreas Mikkelsen, who has started four rallies compared with Solberg’s five, by 18 points.

“The championship is still open,” Solberg told WRC.com. “It’s difficult – we are fourth in the standings now, but we’re not completely sure who is the main competition. Does [Andreas] Mikkelsen get the full seven rallies? If he does then, for sure, he can be tough to beat. This is the complicated thing about WRC2 – it’s hard to know where everybody really is.

Talking more about his season, Solberg added: “On the whole I’m happy. When we came to WRC2 at the start of the year, I said I wanted to try to be quick, try to be the fastest – it’s what every driver is hoping for. I think we’ve done that for much of the time. There have been some mistakes and some small issues, but the speed has been okay for me.

“Let’s look forward to Greece and the next rallies. Basically, I have to do what I can do and hope for the best – there’s really not so much for me to lose.