[WRC] Safari Rally Kenya 2021

[pantealex]

https://storage.googleapis.com/downl...7061&alt=media
Bulletin 1
11.11 Permitted bodywork amendments
With reference to the 2021 FIA ISC, Appendix J - Article 261; The organisers will permit;
• Additional opening on the bonnet or on a front fender
• Front impact protection

Are those WRC2/3 tyres same type as Portugal/Sardinia was used ?

[mknight]

-Don't quite get what the "opening" is for? It's not like it's warmer than Sardinia or Turkey, maybe a bit more humidity.

-Not sure how eager teams will be to mount massive bars to the front as it will have big impacts on balance


Don't see why WRC2/3 tires should be different.
Note that in Sardinia afaik the only one out of the top 4 WRC2 (Hutunnen, Østbeg, Bulacia, Fourmaux, and Gryazin + Mikkelsen but they drove only a few stage) with a puncture was Østberg on one stage. That's hardly any drama.
In Portugal afaik it was Østberg and Suninen with one each, Lappi, Solberg, Bulacia etc. didn't have any.

Historically R5s get a lot of punctures though, in Turkey it's usually at least one each.

From the little of what I have seen of Safari stages the problem is typically huge bumps/terrain on the road. Not necessarily big stones.

[denkimi]

-Don't quite get what the "opening" is for? It's not like it's warmer than Sardinia or Turkey, maybe a bit more humidity.

I assume it's to allow a snorkel.

[mknight]

That would make sense, but doesn't it then need to allow "a pipe" or something, not just "an opening".

[Rallyper]

That would make sense, but doesn't it then need to allow "a pipe" or something, not just "an opening".

The opening is essential for the pipe to be snorkel. The pipe isn´t about bodyshell, but hole is. I would pressume...

[pantealex]

-Don't quite get what the "opening" is for? It's not like it's warmer than Sardinia or Turkey, maybe a bit more humidity.

-Not sure how eager teams will be to mount massive bars to the front as it will have big impacts on balance


Don't see why WRC2/3 tires should be different.
Note that in Sardinia afaik the only one out of the top 4 WRC2 (Hutunnen, Østbeg, Bulacia, Fourmaux, and Gryazin + Mikkelsen but they drove only a few stage) with a puncture was Østberg on one stage. That's hardly any drama.
In Portugal afaik it was Østberg and Suninen with one each, Lappi, Solberg, Bulacia etc. didn't have any.

Historically R5s get a lot of punctures though, in Turkey it's usually at least one each.

From the little of what I have seen of Safari stages the problem is typically huge bumps/terrain on the road. Not necessarily big stones.

I´m not worried about tyres, I was just asking did Pirelli choose same ones ?
In past different rallies had different tyre options. (soft,medium,hard etc)

[Fast Eddie WRC]

M-Sport boss optimistic about the Safari...

https://www.the-star.co.ke/sports/20...-safari-roads/

[mknight]

Was looking on some of the recce onboards from the organizers, (listed under maps: https://www.rally-maps.com/Safari-Ra...nboard%20Video ) and also on some vids from previous year.

The power stage is kind of normal stage similar to a mix of Portugal and Sardinia.

Didn't watch all stages, but there are some other stages that I really wonder about:

- SS2/5 is narrow "in the jungle", slow and almost completely on grass, often with no road visible (2:20+, 26:40+), How are the first cars going to pick a line? How will the road look after first pass or even after a few cars?

- SS3/6 or 8/11 have a lot of really longs "straights" which are not perfectly straight and have lots of hidden bumps/ruts here and there. Really wonder what kind of speed will they try to drive, lot of that looks like you "could" go flat out, but that might end in huge crash.

- 9/12 has kind of mix of all, open straights/wide sections, parts on open grass areas where basically any car can drive completely own line (is it faster to follow tracks of others? Does it get slippery from mud?) and parts that are so narrow and with big height differences that anything about 50 km/h smells disaster

Quite a large part of the rally is "mud/earth" and not "gravel" which afaik is now not seen anywhere in WRC, Azores surface is maybe closest.

Really wonder how teams approach the setup and drivers their style of driving.
High rideheight/soft car? Doesn't always seem necessary. Long gearbox? - will it help if you can't go flat out on the straights without breaking something and have a lot of very slow sections? Etc. etc.

[the sniper]

No doubt, it's going to be interesting!

[AnttiL]

Yeh I've also been watching the recce videos.

The Sunday stages seem more like "normal rallying" with actual roads and bends on it, also partly dense junction turns and straights almost like Ypres. Power stage is probably the fastest of the whole rally. The Sunday single-run stage is probably the most technical stage of the rally (and also my favourite). Friday and Saturday is more Rally raid offroading, with frequent surface changes from roads to tracks. You might have a long straight but there's places where you need to brake because the road is so bumpy. Some sections are super fast, some seem like slow based on how the recce jeep is going over them. Only a couple of river crossings. Very few tight corners or technical sections (although sometimes they've made deliberate detours or additional corner tightenings as chicanes). And most of the roads are super narrow, only one car width.

At least it's very different, completely different to anything on any other rallies of the current WRC. Some sections are a bit like the worst roads of Sardegna, and some are a bit like Turkey, but the character is so different (slow because of road bumpiness, not because of tight corners).

There's plenty of wild animals on the stages, sometimes running quickly across the road, sometimes in herds moving slowly. Will we just get a lot of notional times for slowing down because of animals? And I presume we will see a lot of animals being hit by the cars, will they show all that on All Live? Front bumpers will be necessary because of that, otherwise they could get radiator damage.

Also worth remembering that the videos were shot months ago, and the organizers supposedly worked on the stages, and the Equator rally was driven also on some of the stages after the videos, in torrential rain. The WRC event should be dry, however.