The seventh leg of the 2023 World Rally Championship (WRC), the Safari Rally, is just around the corner and among the elite drivers who are dreaming of victory in Naivasha is Toyota Gazoo ace Sebastien Ogier.
The eight-time world champion won the leg in 2021 and was on the lead last season before he was slowed down by a frustrating puncture at Kedong which paved the way for his team mate, Kalle Rovanpera's ultimate crowning.
The French speedster will make a return to the contest next week, focused to reclaim his Safari Rally title.
His other teammates preparing for the grueling contests are Rovanpera, Takamoto Katsuta and Elfyn Evans.
"I love the Safari Rally. Winning this event is one of the highlights of my career. This Rally, it's one of the special ones," he told RedBull.com.
It's not just the incredible competition the African classic presents, but the people and the place itself that appeal so much to the Toyota-driving Frenchman.
"The place," he added, "is quite magical. The people, the country and the roads - everything is just amazing. When you look at the people, it's humbling to see how warm they are and for the welcome they are giving to us. They never stop smiling. "I love the human side of this place and anything I can to help them, I will always do."
Next week's seventh round of the FIA World Rally Championship represents one of the season's most complicated events for the crew and the car.
Ogier said: "The challenge of Safari, it's unique. It's not like anywhere else on earth.
"But we don't forget: the roads also can be super-tough. You can go from the big, big rocks where you take only first gear into places where you struggle like hell to come through the fesh-fesh, with your face full of the dust. And then we're out to the big, wide open African plains and you are flying and looking up to the big blue sky.
"It's Africa. I love it."
Last year, Rovanpera led Toyota Gazoo to a 1-2-3-4 finish in the Safari Rally with his compatriots Evans, Katsuta and Ogier finishing in that order. The last time Toyota swept the podium at the event was in 1993 won by Juha Kankkunen.
Meanwhile, Pierre Louis Loubet of Ford Puma will be the first of the foreign drivers to arrive for the Safari Rally today.
Loubet is determined to make amends in the series after a discouraging outing in the first six legs of the global showpiece.
