Kenyan driver Karan Patel and his navigator Tauseef Khan led the celebrations in Bugesera after winning the 2023 Rwanda Mountain Gorilla Rally on Sunday in a Ford Fiesta RS car. Patel, who won the Rwandan Rally in 2022, retained the race after covering a distance of 175,56km in 1 hour 20 minutes and 15 seconds. He finished the three-day rally at the top after opening a 16.7 second lead on Jas Mangat of Uganda who emerged second overall. With the victory in Rwanda, Patel is now second overall on the 2023 African Rally championship rankings with 87 points, just three points shy of Uganda’s Yasin Nasser (90) who still leads the continental championship with 90 points despite finishing sixth on the ARC ranking in the Mountain Gorilla Championship. Having conquered Burundi, Kenya and now Rwanda, the Kenyan has two more races in Zambia and Tanzania to chase Nasser off the top of the 2023 ARC rankings. Meanwhile, Rwanda’s Giancarlo Davite finished the Rwandan Rally in the fourth position after he pulled out of the race last year while Queen Kalimpinya, the only female driver among 25 who participated this year, finished 18th out of 21 drivers that managed to finish the race. The New Times’ photographer Dan Kwizera Gatsinzi takes you through his lenses and brings you a recap of some key highlights that you might have missed from the weekend rally that took place in the dusty roads of Bugesera.
