Pearl rally: Samman; the man of the day after Leg 1 in Mbarara

Kenya’s Samman Vohra has made his intentions of winning this year Pearl of Africa rally known to everyone after his impressive showing on the first leg of the African rallyt championship round. 

Co-driven by Drew Sturrock in the Skoda Fabia Rally2, Samman drew first blood edging his Kenyan counterpart Karan Patel by 7.8secs in the morning 6.1km Rukaari stage. 

He asserted himself more by topping the subsequent two stages to widen his lead to 43 seconds by the end of the morning loop. 

Samman still pulled off a show in the afternoon double super special stage to end the day with a 42 seconds lead over Patel. 

“It has been a decent day overall,” said Samman. 

“It was about getting a good rhythm from the start. We found our pace at the start and we just kept a steady drive, clean and cautious,” he added. 

Pearl rally is Samman’s ninth career rally event and the first event outside of his homeland Kenya. 

The crew is looking at maintaining the pace into the final leg. 

“We are not changing any strategy. We are driving the same. We have a small lead that allows us a small caution and not take any risks. So we shall just be calculative and get the car to the end,” he said. 

The reigning ARC champion Karan Patel may have some work to do to trim that lead. He will also have to deal with Uganda’s Yasin Nasser in third place. 

Another Ugandan driver Micheal Mukula settled for fourth at the end of leg 1 with Kenya’s Nikhil Sachania in fifth to complete ARC top five after day one. 

The final day is the toughest consisting of 8 stages and a total competitive distance of 135.22kilometres. 

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