M-Sport Ford has announced nine-time world champion Sebastien Loeb will enter Safari Rally round of the World Rally Championship next month.
Loeb, who last participated in the famous event in 2002, has been contesting a partial WRC campaign this season.
The 48-year-old Frenchman will be joined again by Isabelle Galmiche, who saw him to victory in Monte Carlo and sat with him in Portugal.
“For sure it was nice to see we were competitive in Portugal with the Puma which was good, it is good to know the Puma is very fast and competitive on gravel,” Loeb told Ford Media Centre.
“Kenya is something very different to Portugal, I don’t know the current version of the rally, I have seen some videos of the stages which are very different, they appear to be rough with very big stones.
“Kenya is quite amazing; I think it’s the rally from where I have the most memories! At that time Kenya was very different, the longest stage was 120km long and we all had a helicopter over our cars announcing all the wildlife that we were approaching on the stage.
“Now it is very different and is more like a typical WRC rally, it is easier to do it this way but the difference for me compared to Portugal is I have no experience of these stages. It is always much more complicated when you arrive to a rally where you have never done the stages before, it will not make it easy but I am really happy to be going,”he added.
Safari Rally Kenya comprises 19 special stages covering almost 365km of competition.
The famous gravel-based event features stages around Lake Naivasha as well as forested areas in the north of the region and it returned to the WRC in 2021 after a 19-year absence.
Additional information: M-Sport
