African Rally Championship ,ARC, defending champion Karan Patel sits top of the continental standings after the opening day of the 2025 FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) Safari Rally on Thursday.
Navigated by Tauseef Khan in a Skoda Fabia Rally2, the Kenyan ended his day in 16th overall and seventh in the WRC2 support competition.
Polish rally driver Kajetan Kajetanowicz led the WRC2 category in ninth overall ahead Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 star Oliver Solberg who romped home in 10th.
“So far so good, the car is behaving well. We don’t have service tonight, so we are taking care of it, so we go straight out tomorrow with a 15 minute service.
“The stages are good but tomorrow is the real deal. The approach is to race against those who have entered the African Rally Championship, so the aim is staying ahead of them,” Karan told this website.
He also topped the Kenya National Rally Championship (KNRC) category as his charge to reclaim the national title got off to a promising start.
Kenyan youngster Jeremiah Wahome and his Mombasa based partner Victor Okundi were the second best placed local duo in 18th. He is competing in the ARC and KNRC categories.
Five times ARC Safari winner Carl “Flash” Tundo and reigning national champion Samman Vohra trailed each other home in 19th and 20th in that order.
Hamza Anwar was the fifth placed Kenyan in 22nd position.
The former FIA Pirelli Rally Star driver was left to rue reliability problems in the second Mzabibu Stage.
“The rally was okay, we started off easy in Kasarani, but not bad, we are getting used to the new car.
“We lost power steering two kilometres before the stage. It took us more than 8 minutes to do 8 kms but we are still in the game. We might miss a minute or two tomorrow to change the part, we are not retiring,” Hamza said.