World Rally Championship (WRC) driver Kalle Rovenpera has ranked staying out of harm’s way as the key to success in the World Rally Championship Kenyan terrain.

The Finn laid down his bid for the third series in Kenya after edging Hyundai WRT cars of world champion, Thierry Neuville and Ott Tanak in the Wednesday Shakedown event in Naivasha.

Kalle Rovenpera, who joined Sebastian Ogier as the only winner of the competition on Kenyan soil since its return to Africa, maintained that his shakedown won’t be counting much heading to the grueling and long terrain.

“It is always good when you have a good pace in the shakedown but I think this is the one of the rallies where pace is not important.  You need a clever way with good driving and try to avoid all the issues,“ he said.

The Finn’s latest success in Kenya came when he completed a challenging African fixture with a 1m 37.8s victory margin in March 2024.

He says he hopes to repeat the good showing and stretch his dominance in the Kenyan circuit.

“We will try our best to really have a good result.  We have been strong here before and that’s our goal this week. The approach is always the same: you need to try to keep a steady pace but stay out of trouble, you need to be fast but also clever, keep the steady car and the tyres in one piece,” he said as qouted by the WRC portal.

Challenging terrain

Meanwhile, Elfyn Evans who was forced to end his shakedown prematurely, mirrored Rovenpera’s sentiments as he tipped the series to be a challenging one.

“It is quite tough and rough out there, and also technically you need an element of care in this Rally to try and get the car to the end and that won’t be easy. It’s quite a rough shakedown with a lot of loose rocks, we had a section in the middle with a lot of fesh fesh(surface sands) which is quite challenging. I don’t know how the rest of the rally will be but it’s going to be difficult,” the Welshman driver stated.

The rally set to run from March 20-23 in Nairobi and Naivasha counties is set to be flagged-off by President William Ruto at the KICC on Thursday, March 20.

The flag-off will precede the two racing events set to wrap up Thursday’s action.

Kasarani next

The initial leg will be the super special stage (SS1), located in Nairobi, this dual-lane, head-to-head stage at Kasarani Stadium will see drivers run in reverse direction compared to previous years.

Two cars will race side by side on the compact, mixed-surface track, setting the tone for the rally in front of thousands of spectators.

The teams will then drive to the Rift valley in Naivasha Service Park. The 8.15 km stretch of Mzabibu in Naivasha in the afternoon will finish off the events of Thursday.

Mzabibu phase will see drivers’ technical agility tested by the winding farm roads.

The 2025 edition will be made up of 21 stages with a total competitive distance of over 400 kilometres.