Fine Performances from Katsuta and Arai
Last weekend the Toyota GAZOO Racing Rally Challenge Program drivers Takamoto Katsuta and Hiroki Arai participated in the 5th round of the Finnish Rally Championship, SM Ralli Turku, driven in Western Finland. The rally consisted of 9 special stages and 84 special stage kilometers, with the total length of the route being 402 kilometers. SM Ralli Turku was a gravel rally driven in dry summer conditions.
Hiroki Arai and co-driver Glenn Macneall finished 7th in their class, and Takamoto Katsuta, with his co-driver Daniel Barritt, ended up 10th. Both crews competed with Ford Fiesta R5's in the SM1 class
Arai drove the entire rally matching the pace of the leaders. The differences were really small, and Arai even set the fastest time in his class on SS7. On the final stage his driving was hampered with a technical problem, as the anti-roll bar snapped mid-way through SS8 and made the car unstable. The problem couldn't be fixed for the final stage, SS9, and Arai dropped from 6th place to 7th. He finished 34.3 seconds behind the class winners.
Arai had DNFs from the previous two rallies, so the good result from Turku was a relief. “I was a little worried coming to this event. We just had to get the car to the finish line in one piece, and we did that, so I'm happy”, Arai said after the rally. “Driving in the dark was a challenge, and the top speeds of the R5's weren't enough to match for example the Mitsubishi Evo's - even though we were pushing really hard and nearly redlining it. The speeds got extremely high in places”, Arai summed up the challenges of the rally.
Takamoto Katsuta in turn drove a steady rally, putting the things he has learned into good use. Katsuta finished in 10th place, 1 min 02.8 seconds behind the winners, so he wasn't totally happy with his speed. However, thanks to his level-headed and moderate driving he reached his goal of finishing the rally. The biggest challenge for Katsuta, who has a lot of experience from circuit racing, has been reconnaissance and pacenote-making - and now he has really started to get a hang of it. “The roads were fast, but making pacenotes for them was easier as there were not so many jumps and bends. I felt that it was going perfectly and I drove well listening to the pacenotes. And for that I also have my brilliant co-driver Daniel Barritt to thank for. He has taught me a lot. I believe that in the next rally in Tampere I can pick up my pace”, Katsuta said.
Jouni Ampuja, the chief instructor, was also pleased with the result: “From a coaching point of view the rally went well. Time differences were really small throughout the class, so this was exactly the type of competition that teaches our drivers how success can depend on very small things indeed. This event also proved that our coaching programme really works, so we will continue with the same methods and focus on them even more closely.”
Their next rally, Pirelli Rally, is the final event in the Finnish Rally Championship calendar this season, and it is driven in and around the city of Tampere 23 - 24 September 2016.
