The beloved World Rally Championship (WRC) Kenya Safari rally is scheduled to take place from 28-31 March and Yasin Nasser and co-driver Ali Katumba will be the only crew representing Uganda. Deemed as one of the hardest rallies on the WRC calendar but one of the most exciting, Ugandan rally fans will be cheering on the crew as they take part in one of the most loved rallies in the WRC. Ali Katumba will be in the co-driver’s seat for this event instead of Joseph Kamya.
The Moil-sponsored crew will be competing in their Ford Fiesta Rally2 (R5) for the first time on the WRC, they previously took part in the event in a Subaru GVB back in 2021 and were the only crew that passed scrutineering on the WRC level. The team retired on the third day of competition but achieved a tremendous feat for the country and themselves.
The team said as they were doing preparations that they were prepared and even though safari routes are very unpredictable, they will tackle them as they are. They were also thankful to the Moil sponsors for enabling them to take part in such an eventful rally. The event was moved from June to March this time round as the organizers asked for it to be reinstated back to the Easter holiday as it was years ago.
The safari rally will run 19 special stages for a total competitive distance of 368km/229 miles on gravel surface; it is predicted that it could rain heavily this time round which will make for a very interesting event and the famous “fesh-fesh.” This is the third round on the WRC calendar after the Monte-Carlo rally and Rally Sweden. It is also going to serve as a second round of the Kenya Rally National Championship (KNRC). There are a total of twenty-nine crews; nine rally1 crews, fourteen rally2 crews, one rally3 crew (Hamza Anwar), and five group N crews. Kenya’s Carl Tundo will compete alongside Yasin Nasser in the WRC2 category. The first of those 19 stages will take place on Thursday in Kasarani which will host the super special stage where two cars will go head-to-head.
