NAIROBI — African rally champion Karan Patel says his major target at this year's WRC Safari Rally will be to defend his continental title.
Patel says this is a realistic target for which he is confident of attaining if everything works his way.
"To finish top 10 in the WRC Safari Rally would be nice...and to finish top three in the WRC 2 would also be nice but that is a bit far-fetched. For us we are just trying to win the African championships. Hopefully, there is more competition and that means fulfilling and satisfying but yeah...time will tell," the driver said.
Much as he would love to go machine-for-machine with the who-is-who in motorsports, Patel insists that he will not be going flat-out lest he makes costly mistakes in defending his continental title.
"As drivers, you realise that you make more mistakes when you drive slowly than when you go flat-out. However, this is not a rally for us to go flat-out since we are trying to defend our ARC title. We want to finish in the top five or even the top three in the WRC 2. The drivers coming from outside are really fast...this is something they do day in, day out...that's their job, so it is a bit hard if you don't race them every other day," the two-time continental champion.
The Red Bull athlete won his maiden continental crown in 2023 before repeating the trick the following year.
The 2022 Kenya National Rally Championships (KNRC) champion finished ninth in the WRC 2 category in last year's edition of the global event.
It was a marked improvement in fortunes from the previous year when he was penalised owing to an infringement by the FIA and later slapped with a fine.
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Patel says that preparations for this year's rally have been smooth thus far.
"The car...it has come from a major overhaul...engine, gearbox, diffs and repaint...and similar to aviation, whenever you undertake a major overhaul, then you do a test flight. So today was our test flight and we landed smoothly so we are ready for Safari. The car will undergo one more check to go over the areas that didn't work well and then afterwards we will brand it," Patel, an aircraft engineer by profession, said.
He added: "Following the engine rebuild, we have a new turbo and new engine in the car so definitely there's a bit more power. We found a bit more power in our third gear so gear three now with a bit more torque means a bit more pace in the Safari."
Patel is one of four local drivers who have benefitted from a Ksh 23 million sponsorship from Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) to enhance their preparations towards the competition.
Others are youngster Tinashe Gatimu, Evans Kavisi and Nikhil Sachania.
The competition revs off on March 20 with a ceremonial flag-off along City Hall before three days of a grueling battle with the vagaries of nature in the hills and plains of Naivasha.
