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Gus Greensmith holds the early advantage in WRC2 at Safari Rally Kenya after a brutal opening leg tested crews to the limit around Naivasha on Thursday afternoon.
Driving a Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 for the first time following his winter switch from Škoda, the Briton ended the day with a slender 3.0sec lead over Paraguay’s Diego Domínguez after two punishing stages.
Conditions on the opener, the Camp Moran test, proved almost undriveable after heavy rain turned sections of the stage into deep mud. Fabrizio Zaldivar handled the chaos best to set the early pace, finishing 4.7sec clear of Greensmith despite running out of washer fluid late in the stage.
“To be honest, I drove the last 10km without washer fluid,” Zaldivar explained. “It’s really, really slippery – really, really hard.”
Greensmith also struggled for visibility as his windscreen misted over during the stage, leaving the Briton driving largely by instinct through the worst sections. Behind them, Robert Virves placed third despite describing the conditions as some of the worst he had experienced.
“I think I’ve never seen anything like it,” the Estonian said. “Even inside the car I am full of mud. Basically undriveable – the car is just sliding and doing all sorts of things on the throttle. Also it’s really hard to see out of the window.”
Robert Virves & Jakko Viilo
Former champion Andreas Mikkelsen endured a particularly frustrating opener, the Norwegian completing the final 10 kilometres with no washer fluid and almost no visibility.
“The last 10km I didn’t see anything,” he admitted. “I couldn’t even see which side of the road I was on. Disaster.”
The second test of the afternoon, Mzabibu 1, ran in far more stable conditions and reshuffled the order. Domínguez was fastest to vault into second overall, while Mikkelsen and Greensmith followed close behind.
Greensmith reported a rising water temperature on the stage but still managed to seize the overall lead heading into Friday’s stages. Virves sits third overnight, 8.6sec adrift of the lead, while early pacesetter Zaldivar slipped to fourth after nursing an overheating engine through the latter part of the test. Mikkelsen completes the top five while, further back, Kenya’s Karan Patel holds sixth ahead of compatriot Samman Singh Vohra.
