The first full day of this rally would see the crews tackle 137 kilometres over eight stages. There had already been two stages on Thursday afternoon with really tricky conditions in the first one and Oliver led from Elfyn by over thirty seconds with Seb a further thirty seconds back in third overall. Thierry was the best of the three Hyundai crews holding sixth overall, whilst Jon was seventh for M-Sport.
Onto Saturday then and unfortunately the first stage was cancelled, SS3 Camp Moran 2. This was the stage hit by huge rain and puddles on Thursday afternoon.
The first action then was in SS4 Loldia 1 and Seb set the pace from his teammate Sami, whilst Adrien was third. Oliver who was leading the rally was eighth fastest whilst his closest challenger for the lead, Elfyn, was sixth. The Frenchman reduced the gap to the front in this stage.
Next up then came SS5 Kengen Geothermal 1 and Sami set the pace from Seb and Elfyn in this one. Once again Oliver was near the bottom end of the top ten with the ninth best time and thirteen seconds off the pace. His two teammates had reduced the gap as well with Elfyn less than thirty seconds away and Seb now under forty seconds. It was an impressive stage win for the Finn as he suffered a puncture as well.
Sami also won SS6 Kedong 1, the stage with the jump near the tree, from Takamoto and Thierry was third fastest. Interestingly, Oliver beat both Seb and Elfyn in this stage going sixth fastest with Seb eighth and Elfyn tenth. There was no big-time gaps between the three of them meaning the gaps remained pretty much as they were at the end of Kengen.
After service the crews returned to SS7 Kedong 2 and Seb was fastest this time from Sami and Esapekka. There was a little bit of movement on the overall leaderboard as Seb passed Elfyn for second overall and despite a twenty second penalty Sami moved ahead of Takamoto. The Japanese driver sadly suffered double punctures on his front tyres, losing thirty-two seconds and falling to fifth overall. At least he had two spares on-board to be able to change before the next stage. It was a good drive from Jon in this one who set the sixth best time, just four tenths of a second behind former M-Sport driver Adrien.
Then it was back to SS8 Kengen Geothermal 2 and once again Sami showed that he had this one figured out going fastest again from Seb and Thierry. With no spare tyres, Takamoto just took it easy going sixth fastest. There was some time loss for the rally leader though as Oliver had a puncture on the right-hand rear corner which then saw his lead reduced to just one second over Seb with Elfyn now just a further 4.7 seconds back. Also getting a puncture was Jon in his Puma and he fell one position overall to ninth as Esapekka moved into eighth.
Seb ended Sami’s run of fastest times, winning SS9 Loldia 2 from Adrien and Oliver who set the identical time of fourteen minutes, fourteen seconds and four tenths. Seb’s pace took him a little closer to his Swedish teammate, with just seven tenths of a second between them! There was some movement further down the leaderboard as both Thierry and Adrien passed Takamoto for sixth and seventh overall. There was more drama for Jon though who stopped in the stage for over twenty minutes. The reason was that he’d lost the rear and clipped something at the edge of the road and broke the driveshaft and a part of the suspension. He and co-driver Shane got it changed, but this left the Puma with front-wheel drive. They did make it through to the end which was important.
Onto the final stage then, SS10 Mzabibu 2 and Sami was once again setting the pace from Oliver and Seb. Oliver opened the gap to his world champion teammates to one second whilst Elfyn who remained in third overall saw the gap grow to just under twenty seconds.
Let’s take a look at the top ten positions and hear from the drivers.
Classification after Day One
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Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT
Oliver Solberg
“Today the goal was to try to be clean and keep a similar pace to Elfyn. This afternoon was so rocky, and for my first time in the car in these conditions it isn’t easy. We probably lost half our lead from being careful, and half the lead from the tyre damage in SS8. That was unfortunate but a lead is a lead and I have to be happy with that. Seb has been incredible today, probably taking more risks, but there’s such a long way to go and to be one second in front is better than two minutes behind.”
Sébastien Ogier
“I think I can be very happy with today, starting with a deficit of more than a minute and being only one second from the lead tonight. Of course, we always believed that we could come back after last night, but it felt like a long shot even here in Kenya. Now it’s all very open, so let’s see. I think we are all expecting that tomorrow is the biggest day of the rally with three very demanding stages, so many things can still happen, but we’ll try to keep the same approach and a strong rhythm.”
Elfyn Evans
“It’s been a bit of a mixed day for us. We gave away a bit of time at moments, some of it a bit unnecessarily, but that’s also the nature of this rally. We damaged a wheel in the first run through Kedong and dropped a bit of time with that. It’s been going OK but I wouldn’t say I’m happy. The stages that are coming tomorrow are prone to a lot of rain, especially in the afternoon, and conditions could be difficult already in the first pass. We’ll just keep trying to do the best we can.”
Sami Pajari
“It’s been a nice day for us. The conditions were relatively straightforward, and I just tried to choose the sections where I could push. I still felt that in the most tricky and rough places I was trying to back off. Still, we could set the fastest time in four of the stages and be very close in the others, and that was really nice to see. It’s not like we were just flat-out everywhere because that will end very quickly: you need to be clever too. That will be important too on tomorrow’s stages, where we’ve seen a lot of rain and drama before.”
Takamoto Katsuta
“This morning I was driving quite steady and not really pushing, but still the times were not too bad and the feeling in the car was good. Unfortunately, in the first stage of the afternoon we got the double puncture. That was really not ideal, and I just tried to survive the afternoon with so many rough sections knowing that we didn’t have any spare tyres. We’ve lost a few positions but a minute on this rally is almost nothing and we know that tomorrow anything can happen. Hopefully there will be some drama and I’m ready if it rains.”
Hyundai Motorsport
Thierry Neuville
“It has been an eventful day here in Kenya. I didn’t have the best start this morning, but when we got into a rhythm we felt more comfortable, especially this afternoon after we made some changes. The roads are more rutted, but I just couldn’t drive the car faster. We had a few troubles this afternoon with a stone causing our fan to break and our radiator to overheat. Tomorrow, we’re expecting the worst, although we’re not quite sure what that will be – so we need to focus on getting through, keeping a rhythm, accept the weather isn’t in our favour and do everything we can to stay out of trouble.”
14 Round, Safari Rally Kenya
11-15 March 2026
Photographer: Helena El Mokni
Wordwide copyright: Hyundai Motorsport GmbH
Adrien Fourmaux
“I was really enjoying today – we had the pace, and we were able to do some very good times, so overall I am pleased. We were missing out on the fastest time by a few tenths each stage, but at least we were there and able to close the gap to those ahead of us. That is a positive, and let’s see what we can do tomorrow. We know many things can happen, so we just need to make sure we are performing well in the rain.”
Esapekka Lappi
“This morning it became clear that the settings I have on the car, which I chose myself, are not right, but there isn’t much we can do about the situation. Instead, we focused on what we can control, and were able to make it a bit better. Today we took a similar approach to yesterday – just try to survive until the finish.”
Saturday
The second full day of both morning and afternoon stages sees the crews tackle just under 123 kilometres over six stages, with the longest stage of the rally Soysambu as well at twenty-four kilometres run twice. There is also the possibility of rain arriving in the afternoon as well.
Who will be holding the top positions at the end of the day?
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