WRC 2026 Rd.03 Preview | 2026 | PRESS RELEASE | WRC

Safari Rally Kenya: Preview TGR-WRT aims to extend winning run in rallying’s African epic

2026.03.06 (Fri)

TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team will look to continue its flying start to the season when it heads for Africa to face the uniquely demanding Safari Rally Kenya, which stages round three of the 2026 FIA World Rally Championship on March 12-15.

So far this year, the team has locked out the podium places on the icy mountain roads of Rallye Monte-Carlo and snow-covered stages of Rally Sweden – managing a feat that had not been achieved on the first two rounds of a WRC season since 1984.

The only African round of the championship, Safari Rally Kenya will provide a stark contrast to the winter weather of the previous two events. Since returning to the WRC calendar in 2021 after almost two decades away, the Safari has reestablished itself as one of the toughest challenges in rallying. While some sections of stage are extremely rough and rocky, others consisting of soft sand can be just as difficult to navigate, and rain can turn the usually dry and dusty tracks into deep, slippery mud.

Teams make modifications to their cars especially for this demanding terrain, including the addition of snorkel systems to prevent engines being starved of air when crossing deep water or soft sand.

TGR-WRT has a proud history on the Safari having won all five editions held since 2021, extending Toyota’s record tally of victories to 13. Elfyn Evans conquered the event for the first time one year ago and again arrives in Africa as the championship leader following victory in Sweden. He has a lead of 13 points over team-mate Oliver Solberg, winner of Rallye Monte-Carlo.

Takamoto Katsuta is third in the standings after finishing second in Sweden and has a strong record in Kenya featuring three podium finishes, while nine-time world champion Sébastien Ogier returns to the line-up for his first Safari start since 2023, having previously won the event twice. Sami Pajari is entered under the TGR-WRT2 banner, fresh from his second career podium in Sweden and looking to build on a fourth-place finish on his Safari debut one year ago.

In WRC2, British driver Gus Greensmith makes his debut aboard a privately entered GR Yaris Rally2 car on an event where he has won the category in each of the past two years. Also driving GR Yaris Rally2 cars in Kenya are Paraguayan drivers Diego Domínguez and Andrea Lafarja. TGR WRC Challenge Program driver Yuki Yamamoto will sit out the event to focus on recovering fully following a testing accident prior to Rally Sweden.

This year’s route is more compact, covering four days and 350.52 competitive kilometres, centred around the service park at Lake Naivasha, about a two-hour drive north-west of the capital city, Nairobi. After shakedown on Thursday morning, the rally starts in the afternoon with the Camp Moran and Mzabibu stages. Both stages are repeated to bookend Friday, which also features a trio of tests around Lake Naivasha run twice either side of mid-day service. Saturday takes crews north to Lake Elmenteita for a trio of repeated tests, while a pair of stages are run twice to form Sunday’s final leg with the second pass of Hell’s Gate serving as the rally-ending Power Stage.

Quotes:
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)
“I always enjoy going back to Kenya. I have some incredible memories from driving there, and even though the rally is not as long as it used to be, it’s still the toughest one in terms of the terrain. Toyota has always built very strong cars and focused on preparing for these tough events – the main difference today is that it’s not possible to test in Africa for weeks beforehand like we used to in my day. We’ve had some amazing results to start the season, with all five of our crews finishing on the podium at least once, which shows that we have a really strong team. Of course, we would like to achieve a similar result in Kenya, but our main goal will be to try to win the rally again and to score as many points as we can.”

Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“It’s been an incredible start to the year for the team but we certainly can’t underestimate the challenges ahead of us, especially going into a rally like Safari. It can be a really unpredictable event: you can find rocks in the middle of the road or hidden in the grass, and when it rains there can be standing water and zero grip. It’s been a very successful rally for our team, which works hard to give us a strong car with modifications to help us in those tough conditions. Last year’s rally was quite extreme with the weather and I was very happy to get through it and come away with the win for the first time. It won’t be an easy feat to repeat but that will be the target.”

Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 1)
“It will be a pleasure to return to Kenya after missing the last two editions of the Safari Rally. I look forward to being back in this beautiful country and seeing the excitement of the African fans, and it’s always a unique experience different to any other rally. It will be my first time being there at this earlier time of year, and it looks like it could be wetter than I’ve seen in the past. How you approach this rally depends a lot on the conditions you face, and these can evolve very quickly. It’s an event you need to start with humility, but the team has been in amazing form and Kenya has been good ground for us in the past, so let’s hope we can achieve another great result.”

Oliver Solberg (Driver car 99)
“Safari Rally Kenya is a rally that I love and I’m looking forward to doing it with the GR YARIS Rally1 car for the first time. It’s a very different type of rally to somewhere like Sweden or Estonia because it’s not about pure speed or finding the ultimate feeling with the car. There are some sections you can attack and have a lot of fun in the car, but you can’t do that everywhere, so you need to try to find a consistent and safe pace. The team has an amazing record in Kenya and we can be confident that the car will be strong. The main goal is to have a clean rally and if you can do that, you can bank some very good points.”

Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“It was enjoyable to be in the fight in Sweden and hopefully I can take this feeling forward to Kenya, even though that will be a very different challenge for everybody. For the Safari, you need to forget about driving flat-out like in Sweden and sacrifice some speed to try to manage everything. Despite this, it’s another rally that I really like and it seems to suit me quite well. Our team has also been very good there and they are always providing us with a strong and reliable car for those tough conditions. It’s a special rally for me and for the team and we always feel great support, and I’m confident we can aim for another good result.”

Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“Sweden was a really nice rally for me with a solid performance and result, but Kenya will be a completely different and unique challenge. Doing the rally for the first time last year was a real adventure. On some stages it’s more a matter of surviving, but there are others which are more fast and flowing. It’s a rally where I believe experience is playing quite a big role. Last year we had a clever approach and finished fourth, which was a good result for our first time, but I hope this year we can have more speed and fight for the podium positions, while still needing to be smart about where we push and where we back-off.”