"The full story of our problems yesterday is that towards the end of the second stage both bolts fell out of the bottom of a front strut. We fixed it in the stage by taking one bolt out of the other strut and using it to fix the broken one. The sad part was that just a couple of kilometres after the finish of the stage we hit a massive drift and one bolt was not strong enough to hold the suspension. There was a bang and wheel and strut disappeared over the bushes. We had to wait there for our service car and lost a bundle of time before we got into Naivasha last night. Today I'm afraid that the engine has lost a couple of cylinders thanks to broken valve springs in a four cylinder 360Z. We've been driving a bit more slowly and in fact we stopped twice on the last long stage because we thought there might be someone behind us, but there wasn't".

"We broke the steering rack mountings of the Porsche in the first section this morning but managed to get out with hardly any loss of time. There wasn't much we could do in the short service so we just bodged the mountings and carried on into the second stage. Of course it didn't last long but again we got it out of the stage with only a few minutes lost but then we had to fix it properly and we took probably eleven minutes road section penalty before the last stage. This meant that we had a lot of cars in front of us and to add to our woes the gear lever broke. But this doesn't mean I'm not enjoying myself and I'm still pleasantly amazed at how well we're doing.

Last night the Datsun 260Z was reset on the original Riega suspension and going away from the start this morning they softened up the damper settings. The front end now seems about right and during the rest day the crew will concentrate on the rear end, probably using some of the suspension from Stefano Rocca's car. "We had no problems with the car", said Perez. "But we had to nurse the car a bit because of the suspension".

"That's the real Africa. Almost like the Nullabor but no kangaroos. We had a puncture in the first competitive section about half way through and then when we changed it, the Escort fell off the jack. We hadn't done our tyre change practice like we should have done. But the rest of the day was great. We got a bit if pace and we could get the car moving and passed a couple of cars, which always feels good. And the sandy stuff is always interesting - where you want to go doesn't have much relevance".

Lloyd suffered his first mechanical problem of the even in Mike Kirkland's Datsun 240Z About a third of the way into the last competitive section it seemed like a rear damper had blown a seal. We just had to nurse it the rest of the way through", said Lloyd. "But today all the stages were fantastic".

Having set fastest times in the first two competitive sections, Duncan broke his gearbox fifteen kilometres into the third section and is waiting retrieval by the service car.

We had one really phenomenal piece of luck, one of those things that happen so rarely on rallying. At the Corner Baridi service the two halves of the service crew each thought put eighty litres of petrol in but in fact neither had. I thought the gauge looked a pessimistic so I said stick another twenty litres in. In fact that was all we had and the car ran out of petrol approaching the end of the second section. We just mad it into control but then had to push it out of the control. We were so lucky.

There was a navigational error in the Belgian Porsche which caused a detour of about 32 kilometres which cost them just under 24 minutes on the last section. It was somewhat silent as the crew climbed out of the car at Amboseli. Marcy said "The car is still good and there should not be too much work tomorrow".

Blomqvist set fastest time on the last section by a minute and a half, and second fastest times on the other two sections. He and co-driver Ana Goni got out of the Ford Escort at Amboseli looking quite fresh and pleased "No punctures and no problems", said Blomqvist. "It's good to be here and moving up a few places".

Mr. Waldegard's first exclamation as he opened the Escort's door at Amboseli was "Fie Fahn": a Swedish expression which does not indicate the day went entirely well. He suffered problems in each of the three competitive sections: a broken steering ball joint, the loss of fourth gear and a puncture. "That is Safari", he said philosophically "One day is good and the next day is bad but this Safari is getting a little too unpredictable for my liking" Waldegard is still leading by nine and a half minutes despite these problems.