SAFARI RALLY, PIRELLI’S POST-RECCE ANALYSIS CONFIRMS THAT SLIPPERY SURFACES AND LOOSE STONES WILL BE THE MAJOR THREAT

Slippery surfaces and often changeable conditions, especially on Saturday, with loose stones and loose gravel, with the ever present threat of rain, as in previous editions, could make life complicated for the drivers and provide a stern test for the cars and tyres. These are the main conclusions drawn by the Pirelli engineers following their recce for the Safari Rally. This means that all the RC1 crews have opted for their full allocation of the Scorpion KX WRC SA rather than upping their allocation of the hard compound Scorpion KX WRC to 12. Therefore they will all have 28 soft tyres, which was the only tyre used in recent Kenya Rallies, and 8 hards.

Here are the key points after studying the data for an event where the weather seems less threatening than previously thought, despite its switch to an end-of-March date, normally the start of the rainy season.

• Saturday looks like being the trickiest day of the rally weekend
• The most demanding special stages are generally the first and third on Friday and Saturday with a high tyre stress level, especially the iconic 31 kilometre Kedong stage and Sleeping Warrior (36 km).
• On these stages, and indeed on all of them, the major danger comes from loose stones, which combined with the high average speeds increases the risk of tyre and car damage. Also not to be underestimated is the threat posed by the fesh-fesh, both in dry and wet conditions, when it morphs into deep and sticky mud.
• Tyre wear is generally expected to be medium-low
• Rain forecast probably in the afternoon brings with it the risk of mud and standing water in several sections, with an increased risk of the aforementioned rocks being more exposed.

Here are the analysis charts for each day