Ford Rally Puma is all set to go wild on Safari Rally Kenya

It has been another tight turnaround for the team, buoyed by its recent success and a strong showing in Sardinia for Rally d’Italia, where Craig Breen claimed a well-earned second position backed up by Pierre-Louis Loubet in fourth. Safari Rally is an exciting opportunity for all as nine-time world champion, Sébastien Loeb, returns to the squad for his third appearance in a Ford Puma Hybrid Rally1 this year.

He returns to Kenya 20 years after his one and only Safari Rally experience to date when he claimed fifth overall. Since then, the Frenchman went on to break almost every record achievable in the sport, most notably claiming nine consecutive world titles.

While the distance of the Safari Rally Loeb faced in 2002 is three times that of today’s iteration, the stages remain as tough as Loeb’s determination. And Loeb’s form hasn’t relented over time, increasing his record tally of WRC victories to 80 thanks to victory on Rallye Monte-Carlo with M-Sport back in January. His last outing with the Cumbria-based outfit saw him set a stage-winning pace and lead Rally de Portugal before retiring from the event due to a terminal engine problem.

While the distance of the Safari Rally Loeb faced in 2002 is three times that of today’s version, the stages are still as challenging as Loeb’s willpower. And Loeb’s form hasn’t slowed down over time, with a triumph with M-Sport at Rallye Monte-Carlo in January bringing his total WRC victories to 80. He established stage-winning speed and led the Rally de Portugal in his penultimate outing with the Cumbria-based team before quitting due to a fatal engine failure.

The Safari Rally Kenya will be the ultimate durability test for the Puma Hybrid Rally1 vehicles, as well as a critical evaluation of crews’ abilities to read the shifting terrain to determine which portions of stages to assault and which to just survive.

The breath-taking views of flat-out WRC thoroughbreds leaving gigantic dust tracks through awe-inspiring scenery packed with species normally featured in National Geographic are what makes the race so memorable.

The 2022 Safari Rally will cover a whopping 362.62 kilometres, perhaps pushing the rally’s overall time above three and a half hours after the 2021 schedule covered a lesser distance of close to three hours and twenty minutes.

Last year’s Safari Rally demonstrated that, although being a reduced version of the original Safari Rally, the stages themselves had not been watered down in the least. Only 11 teams completed every stage of the rally, and only 26 finished the race, even though there were 56 entrants.

After an almost 20-year hiatus, the rally returned to WRC in 2021 with considerable anticipation and enthusiasm. Its comeback was greeted with great enthusiasm, and the rally did not disappoint, with M-Sport competing for the podium despite the Fiesta WRC’s reduced development programme.

Adrien Fourmaux, who recorded five top-three stage times and won his first WRC stage on the rally’s last day, considers the 2021 edition to be a highlight as well. Fourmaux finished a hard-earned fifth overall, while Gus Greensmith finished a career-best fourth overall, places both crews may look to improve on on their return to the Kenyan classic.

With Jourdan Serderidis being the first privateer to compete in the Rally1 category, utilising an M-Sport Ford Puma Hybrid Rally1, M-Sport claims another first in the new hybrid era of WRC.