How the 2021 motorsports award winner Virani was arrived at

The 2021 Kenya Motor Sports Federation (KMSF) annual gala was a resounding success. Everybody was happy on an uneventful night until the winner of the coveted Motorsports Personality of the Year Award winner was announced.

There was a collective sigh of despair on one side of the doom and cheers on the other when Aakif Virani was named the motorsport personality of the year.

This despair was picked up by fans who took to social media with emotional rants which have hit the stratosphere, with the KMSF being accused of bias, incompetence, and nepotism with some short of calling for the disbandment of the federation.

Virani won the coveted title many believe was for the Kenya and Africa champion Carl Tundo, a man so exemplary in performance last season that he was invited for the Federation Internationale I’de Automobile (FIA) Gala night at the Lourve in Paris to receive the continental award in an exclusive night. He shared the platform with newly-crowned F1 champion Mark Verstappen on December 21.

In comparison, critics point out that Virani did not do anything worthwhile. He won the KCB Nanyuki Rally by default after Tundo’s results were nullified due to a technical infringement, notched two fourth and one fifth-place finishes. He had earlier finished 22nd in the WRC Safari Rally compared to Tundo’s ninth. The champion won the Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, and Rwanda continental rounds. Many said minus Tundo, Onkar Rai who came seventh in the Safari Rally should have been the second-best option.

By all means, Tundo had a better record and probably deserved the top title for the best in Kenya motorsports’ best roll of honour established 61 years ago. 

People are asking: With such lopsided results, why did the KMSF settle for Virani? Was there lobbying, or did marafikis at KMSF conspire to steal the vote? 

The awards ceremony for the top title right from the beginning in 1960 was earmarked for a personality, competitor, official, or anybody who shows exemplary dedication for the good of motorsport. Traditionally the onus of choosing the best was left to the KMSF or its precursor, the Competition Committee of the Automobile Association of Kenya board members.

The annual ceremony has been dogged with controversy since 1992 when an official, Vir Singh, was named the personality of the year to the chagrin of drivers.

After consultation in a bid to end discontent, the KMSF decided to take a paradigm shift by using what it considered the most effective and democratic method by asking drivers to decide for themselves who they would consider the most deserving person. The federation invited all KMSF Competition License holders to take online voting through Google Pooling Platform of which the federation is ready to open the server to show exactly who voted for who. In short, this was peer-to-peer review process, devoid of KMSF interference.

The federation simply printed out the automatic final tally from the Google platform hours before the final announcement by Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed on Saturday. Investigations reveal that typical in motorsport, egos, backstabbing, grudges, or even pure desire to win will never cease. 

People who love motorsport say this process of using drivers has been found wanting. Instead, the KMSF should form an electoral college bringing together drivers, yes, the same people who have spoilt their party, top sports editors, rally journalists, and the federation’s directors to form an electoral committee.

The drivers should be given just two votes of which the person who they feel is the best will receive both if he or she scores 75 percent of votes cast or else they split equally. The media too will have a certain number with the KMSF board which represents the 15 motorsport clubs, also casting. Then the federation should engage an independent auditor to oversee the whole process. 

They cite the case of Linet Ayuko, the runaway would-be winner of the Female Navigator of the year but failed to meet the 75 percent results threshold to take the trophy after garnering only 70 points. The KMSF choose to give her a consolation trophy to avoid setting a bad precedence.

The 2021 Motorsport Personality of the year fiasco was simply a peer-to-peer debacle, having nothing to do with KMSF.