Kalle Rovanpera among 34 drivers set for WRC Safari Rally in June

A total of 34 drivers led by the current World Rally Championship (WRC) points leader Kalle Rovanpera have been confirmed for the 2022 Safari Rally Kenya scheduled for June 24-26 in Nairobi and Naivasha.

Rovanpera will lead the Toyota assault in their title defence campaign. Others in the Toyota Gazoo Racing are defending champion Sebastien Ogier, Takamoto Katsuta and Elfyn Evans.

Fabrizia Pons at 75, navigating Kenyan Piero Cannobio in a Hyundai i20 , is the oldest contestant while Kenyan Rio Smith, 20, driving a Ford Fiesta F2 is the youngest. Pons co-drove Michele Mouton to third place in the 1983 Safari in an Audi Quattro.

All three P1 manufacturers_ Toyota, Ford and Hyundai are present for the African adventure which returns to East African nation after a successful tourney last year.

Nine times world champion Sebastien Loeb in a Ford Puma returns to Kenya for the first time since 2002 when he finished fifth in a Citroen Xsara WRC. He is the only driver after Pons to have ever driven in the old Safari Rally. M-Sport Ford has also confirmed the participation of Craig Breen, Gus Greensmith and Adrien Fourmaux. Greek Jourdan Serderidis will also run under the team.

Thierry Neuville, Ott Tanak and Oliver Solberg complete the Hyundai line up.

More Kenyans competing in the national championship category of the Safari are expected to beat the May 13 deadline.

The Safari features 19 special stages covering almost 365km of competition. It starts on June 23 outside the Kenyatta International ConventionCentre (KICC) and heads to Kasrani for the Super Special Stage before heading to theWildlife Research and Training Centre , Naivasha for an overnight halt.