A lot has to be done for Kenya to return to World Rally, official say

Despite successfully hosting the 66th edition of the ARC Safari Rally from March 16-18,  Kenya still needs to do a lot more before a return to the World Rally Championship can be realised.

Oliver Ciesla, the Managing Director of WRC promotion department says several steps need to be taken before this is achieved.

Speaking to Citizen Digital after observing the management of the weekend safari rally which was held in Naivasha, Nakuru County, Ciesla said:“We have quite an organized process when we try to identify new venues of the championship; this being the first step – getting the impression on site seeing if it makes sense to pursue. We then share our impression with other stakeholders like the team principle; the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) in particular and discuss with them whether it makes sense to go to the next step where we enter into a commercial agreement which will enable us to organize a candidate event,” Ciesla said.

Ciesla is however optimistic that Kenya ca even do better.

He added: “A candidate event means we came here with a full team observing a similar event like the safari rally or even better but together with FIA official with team representatives which would help us make a final proper evaluation of reasonable big event which would allow us to propose its inclusion to the following year WRC calendar.

Kenya was stripped of its WRC status by the FIA in 2002.