Seb Ogier won WRC Safari Rally Kenya 2023
Hi, friends!
African round of the World Rally Championship was very exciting in every way and result shows just the same but there were some things beside sport on the special stages.
Hyundai's Thierry Neuville was disqualified because of an illegal recce done after the recce time. Regulations say that you can't access the special stages after the supplementary regulations have been published and that's two months before the rally start. There was lots of things being heard from the service park these days because Hyundai accused some of the teams for illegal trainings before the events and before recce even starts itself.
I guess that some of the rumors have been true but there are some descent and honest crews who want to do on the regulations and nothing beyond that.
Anyway marshals caught Neuville in illegal recce because he wanted to see where the stones have been put after the recce has been done. I don't understand this logic. But who am I to judge him?!
There was a big fight in a Toyota squad during the whole rally weekend and Seb Ogier won over current WRC champion Kalle Rovanpera. I must say that I am glad it's this way because we don't want to watch a domination of another driver for years. And it could happen easily.
Rovanpera jr finished 2nd overall with hap of 6.7s behind Ogier while their team mate Elfyn Evans finished 3rd overall almost three minutes behind a leader. Another Toyota driver finished in position four - Takamoto Katsuta. This way team showed once again that they are just better then anyone else. Hyundai and M-Sport will have to improve rapidly if they want to run along the championship leaders.
Dani Sordo finished as a 5th overall and he was the best Hyundai driver of the weekend. M-Sport Ford guys - Ott Tanak and Pierre-Louise Loubet finished as 5th and 7th and that was it.
This weekend was full of action and that's what every rally fan wants to see - action and not domination.
Credit for photos and videos to WRC and Youtube
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