Officials from Kenya and the International Automobile Federation (FIA) have agreed to postpone July’s Safari Rally owing to fears over the Covid-19 pandemic.

Both parties are expected to agree on the new dates for the Kenyan round of the World Rally Championship (WRC) in a few days to come. The competition was making a comeback to the WRC calendar after 18 years off the world scene.

This decision means that Ugandan drivers; Duncan ‘Kinkakane’ Mubiru , Alwi Hassan, Yasin Nasser, and Christakis Fitidis who had already confirmed to take part in this event will have to wait for the new dates.

Launched in May, 1953, as the Coronation Rally to celebrate Britain’s Queen Elizabeth’s ascent to the throne, the Safari Rally was initially scheduled for July 16 to 19.

Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed said her officethrough her Principal Secretary Joe Okudo, held a teleconference with FIA President Jean Todt, the FIA Promoter (who handles FIA’s commercial issues) and Safari Rally chief executive officer Phineas Kimathi with all the parties agreeing on a postponement.

“It is clear that at the moment, people don’t want to travel immediately after Covid-19 is defeated. A decision will be made on how long the postponement will be, because it’s important for people to have certainty,” Amina Mohamed disclosed.

The Covid-19 pandemic has mutilated the 2020 WRC calendar with so far only three rallies in the 14-round championship having been run, in Monte Carlo, Sweden and Mexico.

So far, the WRC rounds in Argentina, Portugal and Italy have been postponed with the Chile round cancelled owing to civil strife in the South American nation.

On the WRC programme after the initial Safari Rally dates is the Rally Finland from August 6 to 9.

FIA are also expected to advice on the fate of this popular competition which is run on the hilly, forest-layered Finnish Lake district, and which precedes Auckland’s Rally New Zealand.

A brief about the Safari Rally.

The Safari Rally is a rally race held in Kenya. It was first held from 27 May to 1 June 1953 as the East African Coronation Safari in Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika as a celebration of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

In 1960 it was renamed the East African Safari Rally and kept that name until 1974, when it became the Safari Rally. Widely regarded as one of the most popular African rallies, it's set to make a return to the World Rally Championship (WRC) in 2020 after an 18-year hiatus.

The older version of the Safari Rally was notorious for being by far the most difficult rally in the WRC championship to win: some had said that winning this particular rally was the equivalent of winning three other rallies. The arduous conditions, such as the constantly changing weather and the very rough roads often rife with sharp rocks, made life very difficult for team personnel. Repairs constantly had to be made to the cars, which added to the elapsed time of the competitors. Frequently, all this work had to be done in intense heat and humidity.

The event adopted the special stage format in 1996. From that edition until 2002, it featured over 1000 km of timed stages, with stages well over 60 kilometers (37 mi) long, unlike most rallies which had under 500 kilometers (310 mi) of total timed distance. This meant that the winner's total time was above 12 hours in 1996 and decreased to two seconds shy of 8 hours in 2002.

The event was excluded from the WRC calendar due to a lack of finance and organization in 2003. Since 2003 the event has been part of the African Rally Championship, organized by the FIA.

On the 27 September 2019, The Safari Rally was readmitted into the WRC championship calendar starting with the 2020 rally between 16 and 19 July.

Local driver Shekhar Mehta is the most successful in the event with five outright victories, in 1973, and 1979 to 1982.