Stig Blomqvist wins East African Safari Classic Rally

Stig Blomqvist and co-driver Stéphane Prévot, of the Swedish Team Tido Race4Health rally team, have won the 2015 East African Safari Classic Rally in a classic Porsche 911 rally car prepared and run by Britain’s Tuthill Porsche.
 

After taking an early lead on the nine-day, 4,000-kilometre rally through Kenya and Tanzania, Blomqvist and Prévot never looked back. While many other competitors were forced to retire through accidents or mechanical issues, Blomqvist – the 1984 World Rally Champion – called on his decades of experience to maintain a blistering pace through the East African bush.
 
After nine tough days of rallying, the number three Porsche crossed the finish line eight minutes ahead of its closest rival, the 911 of Race4Health team-mates, Swedish touring car ace Richard Göransson and co-driver Emil Axelsson. Blomqvist’s win was the second time a Tuthill-built 911 has claimed victory on Safari: the first came with the late Björn Waldegård in 2011.
 
“Congratulations to Team Tido on this well-deserved victory,” Tuthill team boss, Richard Tuthill, said. “Both leading crews delivered impressive performances and certainly earned their podium places on an exceptionally challenging Safari.
 
“African terrain is as merciless now as it was fifty years ago when this rally first started, so it’s a great feeling when a car built by Tuthill crosses the finish line. Seeing so many Tuthill 911s go the fully rally distance is a very proud moment.”
 
Tuthill-built Porsches claimed six of the top ten positions on this year’s Safari, with local boys Alastair Cavenagh and co-driver Gavin Laurence coming home first of the Tuthill Porsche team cars in fourth overall. Tanzania’s Jayant Shah and co-driver Ravi Chana claimed seventh position, while the British pairings of Richard Jackson/Ryan Champion and Steve Troman/Calvin Cooledge came home eighth and ninth respectively.
 
Outside the top ten, a magnificent drive by Safari first-timer, Gilberto Sandretto, with co-driver Fabrizia Pons brought the Italian pair home in eleventh position, the car still looking nigh-on immaculate at the finish. Running well inside the top ten until an incident on the penultimate stage, Joakim Roman and Jorgen Fornander were classified twenty-fifth overall in their Tuthill 911.

Three more Tuthill-prepared Porsche 911s took the chequered flag: the Team Tido Race4Health 911s of David von Schinkel/Per Bjorkman, Christer Johansson/Mattias Adielsson and Roger Samuelsson/Robin Friberg. All enjoyed an eventful Safari, with two cars damaged and the third being driven sixty kilometres out of a stage on three wheels by the end of day two. The three cars were repaired by the eighty-strong Tuthill team and made it to the finish line in Mombasa.
 
“This has been an eventful Safari,” Tuthill added. “Securing so many top ten positions, along with such an incredible result for Gilberto on his very first Safari is just reward for our efforts, but we won’t rest on our laurels. Safari 2017 will soon be upon us and preparations for that will begin as soon as we’re home!”

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