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Division Three and Two Wheel Drive top contender Leonardo Varese is looking forward to the upcoming second half of the 2022 Kenya National Rally Championship season with great expectations.

Varese maintained his lead in both classes on returning his Toyota Auris 2WD to a credible sixth overall position during the weekend’s Eldoret Rally 2022.

The event was organised by the East African American Rally and sponsored by Kenya Breweries through its White Cap brand, towards the fourth round of the KNRC.

 “The team did a really good job in Eldoret. It’s surely more than what we were expecting. I’m grateful to everyone in the team and our sponsors SportPesa for a great outing in The Home of Champions as well as organising a team from East African Safari Rally for great routes and scenery up the Cherangani Hills,” he said.

He added: “We managed to bring back our Two Wheel Drive Toyota Auris 1600cc to a credible 6th overall position and most importantly, kept our 100% finish record intact.”

Varese revealed that he was lucky with limited tyre choice on the tarmac speed test in Chebai. The KNRC is traditionally an all-gravel Championship, but organizers deviated from the norm to offer crews something exciting and unique.

“The tarmac stage was good, but our brakes kind of heated up a little bit. But it’s always great to experience something new for a change.

Overall, everything ran well like clockwork, and we got a little rain up the Cherangani but just enough to give us the much-needed traction, so it was really fun on our descents and ascents,” he said.

Varese is nevertheless grateful to the ‘rally gods’ for keeping his 100 per cent finish record intact.

Varese: “We have extended our lead in Division 3 and cemented our Two-Wheel championship but we’ll need to attain the 75% entry threshold to be declared the champions.”