Biasion and Solberg confirmed for 2023 East African Classic

World Champions Miki Biasion and Petter Solberg will be the star attractions at next year's East African Safari Classic Rally which will count as the 11th running of the prestigious event.

Biasion – the revered back to back world rally champion in 1988 and 1989 – was among the special guests at the just concluded East African Mini Classic in Eldoret region where Dutchman Remon Vos emerged victorious.

Biasion will be returning to the iconic Kenyan gravel as a race driver after a 32-year hiatus. His last appearances came in at the 1990 and 1991 WRC Safaris when he retired on both occasions due to an engine problem and an accident respectively.

Solberg, on the other hand, will be back in the country for the world's toughest classic event after two decades, since retiring from the 2003 WRC Safari Rally Kenya.

Solberg is the 2003 World Rally Champion with Phil Mills. His son Oliver was part of the star-studded Hyundai World Rally Team in the last two WRC Safari Rally events in 2021 and 2022.

Solberg senior debuted in the World Rally Championship in 1998 and was signed by the Ford factory team in 1999. The following year, Solberg started his successful partnership with the Subaru World Rally Team.

With the Subaru works team, Solberg finished runner-up to Marcus Grönholm in 2002 and then became the first Norwegian to win the drivers' world title in 2003. In the following two seasons, he finished runner-up to Sébastien Loeb.

Following Subaru's withdrawal from the WRC at the end of the 2008 season, Solberg secured private backing to start the Petter Solberg World Rally Team and competed with a Citroën Xsara WRC, a Citroën C4 WRC and a Citroën DS3 WRC

Biasion came to prominence in the early 1980s, winning both the Italian and European Rally Championships in 1983, driving a Lancia 037.

He began competing in 1979, in an Opel Kadett GT/E. He was later drafted in to play a key role for the works Lancia World Rally Championship team in the mid-1980s as the squad sought to regroup after previous star driver Henri Toivonen's fatal crash, and would go on to dominate early Group A rallying, taking the world championship in the years 1988 and 1989

East African Safari Classic Rally Chairman Joey Ghose speaking from his Eldoret hometown after the conclusion of the Mini Classic confirmed entries of the two legends, adding that their return will add the much-needed zest to the main Safari Classic event in 2023..

Ghose also confirmed the return of multiple Kenya motorcycle champion and retired rally driver Steve Anthony who piloted the Zero Car at the Mini Classic alongside newly crowned navigator Champion Tauseef Khan.

Ghost underscored the unique and picturesque nature of the escarpment routes as "a true Kenyan experience" but clarified that the 2023 Safari Classic will definitely not return to the same terrain.

"To survive in Africa you have to be a tough man. And I am glad that our drivers have had the opportunity to practice but this is not going to be the route of next year’s event, so that doesn’t give the locals any advantage but at the same time it prepares them physically and mentally to understand that this is Kenyan rallying." Ghose remarked.

Ghose also congratulated the Dutch-Belgian crew of Remon Vos and Stephane Pravot for winning the Mini Classic following the heavy five-minute penalty handed to the top two drivers Baldev Chager and Piers Daykin who dipped to 13th and 14th respectively.

Ghose: "We have a person from Belgium who won which goes to show it’s an equal field for everybody and that’s what we are trying to bring back, a level playing field and a scenerio where rules and regulations are followed to the letter."

"What we want to change is that the classic shouldn’t be so tough, I think it’s important that everyone survives and have a good time but at the same time it should not be so easy as we also have to uphold the real Safari tradition."