(Reuters) – Double world champion Kalle Rovenpera led a Toyota one-two-three after dominating the opening leg of Safari Rally Kenya on Friday.
The Finn, who is competing only part-time this season, won all six of the day’s stages to take a 56.9 second lead over Elfyn Evans with Takamoto Katsuta in third place.
“It has been a really good day for us,” said Rovanpera of the rough gravel stages around Lake Naivasha. “I felt I could manage the pace quite well.
“I was quite happy pushing hard when the conditions were good, and then especially this afternoon taking care of the car and the tyres in the rough places and still we could have good times.”
Hyundai’s Espekka Lappi and Ott Tanak both retired, the first with a transmission failure and the latter after breaking his car’s steering when he hit a rock and pitched into an earth bank while running in second place.
Championship leader Thierry Neuville, who was fastest in Thursday’s short opening stage, dropped to fourth place in his Hyundai after suffering tyre damage in the morning but coming back strongly in the afternoon.
“I tried to push as much as I could but it was a challenging day. Obviously the puncture made us lose a lot of time,” said the Belgian.
M-Sport Ford’s Adrien Fourmaux was in fifth place with team mate Gregoire Munster sixth.
Saturday, the longest day of the rally, features another six stages and a total competitive distance of 160.96km, with rain forecast.
“If some big rain comes we know that the gaps can be huge and you can lose a lot of time,” said Rovanpera. “So we’ll just try to keep on working the same way as we did today.”
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
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