Kenya will once again host has the World Rally Championships (WRC)
The 2021 edition marked the return of the WRC leg to Kenya and Africa after 19years.
This years competitions will kick off from 23rd- 26th June this year in Kasarani, Nairobi; Which will serve as the base point and end at the Hell’s Gate in Naivasha.
Among the 34 drivers which are expected to participate in this years showdown Kenya will be represented by 4.
Mcrae Kimathi, Maxine Wahome, Jeremy Wahome and Hamza Anwar have been selected to join the WRC FIA star programme which gives them an opportunity to compete on the global stage..
A total of nineteen special stages are expected to be in this year’s competitions, with a total distance of 363.44 KM to be covered.
Former WRC Champion Sebastien Ogier (France) is up to defend his tittle with stiff rivalry expected from nine time WRC champion Sebastian Loeb.
Adrien Fourmaux (France), Gus Greensmith (GB) and Jourdan Serderidis (Greece) and Ireland’s Craig Breen,Kalle Rovanpera (Finland), Elfyn Evans (GB), Takamoto Kastuta (Japan) are among the drivers expected in the competitions.
Did you Know?
Rally, unlike other motorsport competitions, cars and drivers do not race each other, but interestingly, they race against the most technical opponent to beat called time.
Co-drivers are attributed to the rally drivers in every particular race.
The co-drivers give the driver the directions, inform them of turns and obstacles they might face while giving speed guidelines.
Each Rally competition has averagely 15-25 special stages.
Each stage is linked by public roads that are referred to as Road Sections in rallying.
All Challengers in the competitions follow the local traffic rules outlined by Federation Internationale de I’Automobile (FIA), which is the international governing body of WRC.
All the special stages are usually scheduled to be completed within the 2-4 days of racing.
An average distance of 250 KM is covered on a day by the challengers.
Flag off
At the starting point of the race, each car is given a greenlight to take off at an interval of two minutes.
The driver is given a signal at the start stage by an electronic countdown which has a series of lights.
Once the greenlights are on, the driver takes off.
The time used by each competitor to complete a given special stage is keenly monitored and recorded into the results system in the form; Minutes, seconds and tenths of a second.
Discipline is a pivotal thing in rally, and a ten seconds penalty us charged on a driver on every one minute wasted if; He arrives early or late to the start of the special stage, or when the driver exits the service park late.
In cases where the driver is half, or an hour late, he is omitted from the competitions.
The winner is often determined after calculations on time are done.
The driver that used the least possible time to complete all the special stages among all the competitors is declared the winner.
