Safari Rally - 3rd Day - 1st Loop: Rovanpera extends his lead after a "full-in-punctures" Saturday morning

At the end of Saturday morning, Kalle Rovanpera remains the leader of Safari Rally Kenya with Thierry Neuville and Takamoto Katsuta following him.

Kalle Rovanpera is still leading Safari Rally Kenya after the first loop of Saturday and increased further his lead as he was among the three WRC drivers together who stayed out of trouble. The Finn set the fastest time in Stage 10 and is comfortably out in front as his gap from the second Thierry Neuville is more than one minute.

The Hyundai driver climbed to the third place overall after Elfyn Evans's puncture in Stage 8 and stole Takamoto Katsuta's second position at the end of Stage 10 as their gap was at 4,8 seconds after the end of SS9. Moreover, Neuville set the fastest time in Stage 9, but he dropped many seconds on the final stage of Saturday morning compared to Rovanpera.

Katsuta completes the 1-3 for Toyota and lost his second place when he suffered from a puncture in SS10, but he started his day in a positive way as he was the fastest driver in SS8.

Adrien Fourmaux gained only one place since yesterday and is now fourth while he wants to keep his position as he is the only M-Sport Ford driver remaining after Gregoire Munster's retirement.

Elfyn Evans dropped from third to fifth after the end of Stage 8 as he stopped 12.7 Km into SS8 to fix a rear-left puncture. A second puncture hit him 12 Km into SS10, but this time the rear-right tire was delaminated.

Gus Greensmith, Oliver Solberg, Jourdan Serderidis, Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Nicolas Ciamin complete the top ten.

Ott Tanak and Esapekka Lappi restarted today under the SuperRally regulations. The Estonian driver of Hyundai stopped 9.9 Km into SS8 to resecure a bonnet pin while he had no intercom in SS9 resulting in Martin Jarveoja using hand signals. On the other hand, Lappi hit the front-left of his i20N on a rock and the tire was delaminated 2-3 Km before the end of SS8 while he suffered from another puncture in Stage 10. In addition to that, EP hit a zebra on the final stage of Saturday morning and complained that the organizers changed the cuts after the recce.

Gregoire Munster retired before the start of SS9 as he damaged the rear suspension in Stage 8 and stopped 24.2 Km into SS8 to let Fourmaux through. He and Louis Louka tried to fix the suspension on the road section before the start of Stage 9, but M-Sport Ford decided to withdraw their car.

Watch below the stage times: 

Watch below the overall classification after SS10:

Photo Credits: Toyota