GREENSMITH FIGHTS OFF ILLNESS TO TOP WRC2

Fuelled by hydration tablets, a determined Gus Greensmith fought off a stomach bug to begin his WRC2 campaign with a thoroughly deserved victory. The Toksport Skoda driver had long targeted the wild surroundings of Kenya to open his WRC2 season, but hadn’t anticipated a health battle on top of taming the toughest stages on the calendar.

A severely under-the-weather Greensmith set the pace from the outset before delivering a mistake-free drive to move into a comfortable lead of more than three minutes at the end of Friday.

Once out in front, Greensmith could manage his pace after main rival Oliver Solberg dropped almost four minutes following punctures on stages two and three. Greensmith eventually took the victory from Solberg by

1m23.1s. An all-skoda podium was completed by Kajetan Kajetanowicz.

“There was no point when I thought

I was going to give up because I knew I couldn’t from my own personal thing,” said Greensmith. “The guys in the team have been saying that it’s my best rally – there was not a single mistake, so I’m very happy.

“It was good from the first stage, we took the lead and once we had a big lead we just controlled it. I was never under pressure. Having a three-and-a-half-minute lead is much easier than having to fight, but for sure going slowly you can sometimes make mistakes. Whenever we needed the speed, we had it.”

Although frustrated by the punctures, Solberg, who also battled fever-like symptoms earlier in the week, now leads the WRC2 standings from Greensmith.

“This was one of the toughest rallies of course and the punctures happened unfortunately,” said Solberg, who won

11 of the 19 stages. “I think for the rest of the season it will be a little bit easier than Africa. The important thing is to keep the strategy we have been doing.”