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A first of its kind in the history of Uganda’s most prestigious rally, the 6.8-kilometre stage took place on Friday afternoon instead of the usually famous super special stage and was open to only Africa Rally Championship priority drivers.
Yasin Nasser set the fastest time on the 2023 Pearl of Africa rally qualifying and pre-rally test stage, beating Jas Mangat by only eight seconds.
A first of its kind in the history of Uganda’s most prestigious rally, the 6.8-kilometre stage took place on Friday afternoon instead of the usually famous super special stage and was open to only Africa Rally Championship priority drivers.
Rookie Kenyan driver Rio Smith despite looking off the pace in the first two passes of testing stepped up his pace a notch in his timed run to finish third, to finish 25 seconds off the pace in his Subaru Impreza GVB.
Mike Mukula Jr finished seven seconds behind Smith, with Innocent Bwamiki finishing a further two seconds behind.
As the fastest qualifier, Nasser and his Ford Fiesta R5 chose to start third on the road on Saturday’s opening leg, with the road sweeping duties handed to Bwamiki, who will set the racing lines for the cars behind him.
Mukula starts second, Magat will start fourth with Smith starting fifth and will be chased down by the cast will score under the National Rally Championship only led by Ukasha Mugoya.
The NRC drivers will start in a reverse order meaning that the Ford Fiesta Protos of Ronald Ssebuguzi and Duncan Mubiru will be the last cars on the road.
Rain is the forecast of the weekend, but the opening six kilometers were dry, giving the drivers a cleaner and more equal ground to test their pace for the weekend.
“It’s going to be a tricky event,” Nasser predicted while speaking to Pulse Sports.
“We have already changing conditions. During qualifying it has been dry, and the road have been cleaner albeit with some soft and wet arrears.”
“And as we saw, when the roads are dryer, it will be faster and more fun, and that is what we are hoping for, but we cannot truly tell what to expect through the weekend at this time.”
“But everyone’s wish is for the weather to remain the way it is now. Otherwise, we will be in for a tough challenge,” he stated.
The rally will cover 12 stages over two days of action. Saturday's leg will be the longest of the rally covering 155 kilometres over eight competitive stages.
The crews will tackle three stages repeated twice (namely- Muna Singh, Frank Nekusa, and SCOUL) for the first two legs of Saturday before they move onto Edwin Kalule and Wairaka stages to end the day.
Sunday will cover four competitive stages including two passes over the Bujagali super special stage to bring the total competitive distance to 205.27 kilometres.
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