The fourth and final day of Safari Rally Kenya 2025 has come to an end. Elfyn Evans held on to claim the event win.
Morning Loop (Stages 17-19)
Elfyn Evans lost some time to Ott Tänak during the morning loop. However, the Welshman had a just under two-minute lead over Tänak heading into the day, and now sits a minute and a half ahead of Tänak after the morning loop. This isn’t much of a surprise, as Evans has elected to take a safe approach and just make it to the finish rather than risk losing it all. Tänak, Katsuta and Fourmaux each had a stage win during the loop. Hyundai has been on a warpath so far for Super Sunday. As all three Hyundai drivers are in the top five of the Super Sunday standings, with Nueville leading. Only one driver had a major issue during the morning, that driver being Kalle Rovanperä. Rovanperä was forced to retire on the road section between SS17 and SS18 due to an alternator issue.
Afternoon Loop (Stages 20-21)
Elfyn Evans lost even more time to Tänak on the final two stages of Safari Rally Kenya 2025. However, Evans managed to end the event with a lead of over a minute ahead of the Estonian. Katsuta and Fourmaux each took a stage win to end the event. Adrien Fourmaux took home the Powerstage win for extra points. Fourmaux also took top honours in the Super Sunday standings. Narrowly beating out Thierry Neuville. Katsuta rolled during the Powerstage but was able to restart after getting some help to roll his car back over. The Japanese driver lost almost three minutes due to the roll.
Quotes
Toyota Gazoo Racing
Akio Toyoda (TGR-WRT Chairman)
“Elfyn and Scott, congratulations on your victory! Their victory has brought the team three consecutive wins this season and a fifth straight win at the Safari Rally Kenya. Also, they brought Juha, who was on-site as Deputy Team Principal this time, to the podium. As a long-time rally fan, I wanted Juha to stand on the podium again at the Safari Rally, so I am grateful to them for making that happen.
We were able to win the rally thanks to Elfyn and Scott, but the roads in Kenya were as challenging as ever. It wasn’t an easy victory. We approached Kenya with thorough preparations based on four years of experience there. However, this year we faced new challenges once again. So many things happened up until the last day and the last stage. I wish we could have made it easier for Elfyn and Scott to win. I wanted to let Kalle and Jonne drive until the end. I wanted Takamoto and Aaron to finish the rally with a strong result and I wanted to give Sami and Marko more opportunities to showcase their skills.
We get excited every time we encounter a road that reminds us, ‘there is no end to ever-better car making’. Starting tomorrow, everyone in the team will work on improving the GR YARIS Rally1 to make it easier to drive and stronger. And these improvements will extend beyond rally cars to all Toyota vehicles running around the world. The roads of Kenya made us reaffirm the significance of participating in rallies as a car manufacturer. To all the team members, let’s work hard to create ever-better cars from tomorrow, and let’s enjoy the competition with our rivals!”
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)
“I’m really happy that we managed to win the 100th WRC rally for the team, and that I could celebrate another Toyota win on the Safari Rally, 40 years after my first victory here. It really brought tears to my eyes. Among the modern day, shorter Safari rallies, this was absolutely the toughest one I have seen. There were a lot of things happening all the time, so I was a lot more nervous following it than I ever was when I was driving myself. We were maybe a little bit unlucky compared to previous years, especially on this final day, but the most important thing is that we managed to win this rally for Toyota once again. It was a really good job from Elfyn and Scott, who have made a fantastic start to the season.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“It’s amazing to have won this rally. It’s not quite sunk in fully yet but the Safari Rally is a special event to win. A huge well done to the team, who work very hard to give us an amazing car, and I’m proud to be a very small part of Toyota’s great history on this rally. It’s been a massively demanding weekend, probably the most extreme Safari we’ve seen since we’ve been coming here, and the weather added an extra twist on Saturday. It was not easy to manage the final day, having quite a big lead and needing to bring it home. There was the temptation of extra points to play for on Sunday, but in the circumstances it was important to get the car to the finish, and I’m very happy at the end of it.”
Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“It has been a difficult weekend but we hoped to still try and take some good points from the final day. Everything was fine in the first stage this morning but on the road section to the next stage, we started to see some electrical issues on the car. We tried to fix them but we couldn’t make it happen in the end and we had to retire from the rally. It’s really disappointing to leave without any points, but we will go again in the next rally.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“I’m devastated to end the rally in this way. Near the start of the Power Stage we had a half spin, we caught the inside bank and then we started to roll. It was a very unexpected thing and I don’t know exactly what happened. It has been a very difficult rally and of course I had to try to push, and this kind of thing can always happen. But I’m just very, very sorry for the team.”
Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“It is really a big relief to cross the finish line, which was our only plan for the whole rally. It has been quite a long week, from the recce and through four days of rallying. It can be quite exhausting but we managed it quite well. There were no big mistakes or issues, which is exactly what we wanted from this event, so I can be super pleased with that. I’m happy for the team to have won this rally once again and with the experience we gained here, we can be even stronger next time.”
Hyundai Shell Mobis
Ott Tänak
“Really happy with the result today. A difficult and demanding weekend, but we are happy to bring both cars safely home on the podium. Our chances of victory went on Friday, but after that we kept it clean and now we’ve scored strong points on Sunday. There’s a lot of positives to take from this weekend. Really thankful to the team and the mechanics for keeping us in the game, there was never an easy service so a massive thank you to them. The cars were really put on the limit but the team has improved the Hyundai i20 N Rally1 and its reliability – we’ve been moving in a really good direction since Friday”
Thierry Neuville
“We can breathe now; it was a very stressful day today, always thinking something could break. I think we have been rewarded for our hard work on Friday and Saturday. It was an enormous job between stages for me and Martijn fixing the car, and the team always had a massive job to fix it at every service. But we never gave up, even when things were looking bad, and that paid off. We finally got the result we deserved. ”
Adrien Fourmaux
“A really tough weekend for us with the technical issues that started on Thursday, which was difficult to accept. I’m very proud of our performance on the stages today; we have scored some good points, and it is really positive to come home with those after a difficult event. I’d like to thank the team for giving me such a strong car today that allowed me to fight for maximum Power Stage and Super Sunday points. ”
Cyril Abiteaboul – Team Principal
“Certain podiums feel like wins, and this is certainly the case today. While we have seen that we still have some reliability issues we need to overcome, we can be very satisfied with the overall result here at Safari Rally Kenya. This is the reward for our very strong pace on Friday and Saturday, and for the amazing work and team spirit demonstrated by everyone at Hyundai Motorsport in very challenging circumstances. While the result reduces our gap to Toyota in the manufacturers’ standings, we must now give Thierry and Ott everything they need to challenge Elfyn, who is enjoying a very strong start to the season. Adrien did exactly what he needed to do on Sunday, putting himself in a strong position amongst a group of very competitive drivers. ”