Josh McErlean and Eoin Treacy will start their third World Rally Championship event of 2025 on this weekend’s iconic Safari Rally Kenya. The Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy duo leads a three-pronged M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 attack after promising displays in Monte-Carlo and Sweden. Safari Rally Kenya brings gravel terrain into the mix for the first time this season. However, there aren’t too many similarities between Kenya’s loose-surface stages and the other gravel rallies yet to feature in WRC’s latest calendar of events. WRC’s notoriously arduous Safari spectacular will test cars and crews to the limit as they rally over rugged terrain, much-feared fesh-fesh, and deceptive water splashes. Both McErlean and Treacy sampled the spirit of the Safari at the end of 2023 when they completed the East African Safari Classic Rally in a Porsche 911. The 1500-kilometre event will have given the 25-year-old driver an indication of just how tricky conditions can get in the equatorial region.
I’ve said it about every rally so far this year, but this event is so unique, it’s hard to fully know what to expect,
described McErlean.
McErlean benefitted from a sensible approach to his Rally1 debut on the icy asphalt stages of Rally Monte-Carlo, scoring M-Sport’s first championship points of the year. Encouraging speed on Rally Sweden’s snow stages followed before a quick return home delivered the crew’s first overall rally victory together on the opening round of Ireland’s National Rally Championship.
Fellow Motorsport Ireland representative Aaron Johnston will start his fifth Safari Rally Kenya this weekend. The Toyota co-driver has two Safari podiums to his name alongside Takamoto Katsuta and starts this year’s event in top form after a rousing runner-up finish on Rally Sweden last time out. The 383-kilometre event starts with shakedown on Wednesday morning before the first two competitive stages on Thursday afternoon. A total of 21 stages make up this year’s Safari Rally Kenya in what will be one of the toughest tests on the 2025 WRC calendar.
