TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team’s Takamoto Katsuta produced an excellent performance in extreme winter conditions to end the first full day of Rally Sweden in second place overall and just 3.2 seconds from the lead.
After claiming the early lead in Thursday night’s opening Umeå Sprint stage, Kalle Rovanperä won the first stage of Friday morning and led by 5.7 seconds over team-mate Katsuta after SS3. Unfortunately, in a tricky SS4 that caught out a number of drivers, Rovanperä spun after contact with a snow bank, causing radiator damage and forcing him to stop for the day. With the damage repaired, he will restart tomorrow.
Katsuta made it through the morning cleanly, recording the fastest time in SS4 and taking over the rally lead by 11.4s. Elfyn Evans had a high-speed 360-degree spin in SS3 but recovered well without losing much time and ended the morning just 1.9s further back from the lead in third.
The afternoon loop of stages brought more difficult conditions with heavy snowfall, which meant that the road became faster with each car that swept past, with additional challenges coming in the final two stages that were run in darkness. Katsuta handled these challenges well to lose only a small amount of time to Esapekka Lappi (Hyundai) who was running two cars behind him.
In the deep snow, Evans was at a greater disadvantage from his road position, especially after he was forced to open the road from the second stage of the afternoon onwards. He ended the day fifth overall, 30 seconds from third place.
Quotes:
Jari-Matti Latvala (Team Principal)
“It’s been more than 10 years since I can remember having such heavy snow on Rally Sweden. It’s been very tricky out there for the drivers, especially those who were opening the road. Kalle made a good start this morning and had everything to fight for the win, but unfortunately, he made a mistake. Of course, it’s disappointing, but it’s a part of rallying that these things happen when you’re pushing to win. With his road position in these conditions, I think Elfyn drove really smart and did a great job. Taka also did a really good drive today. Tomorrow should be easier for him with better conditions, and I’m sure it’s going to be a good fight between him and Esapekka – hopefully until the end of the rally.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“It’s been really tough today with the conditions. Even on the first pass this morning there was a lot of snow and it just got more and more during the day. This morning I just tried to find a rhythm where we felt comfortable. We avoided big risks and this paid off pretty well. Then this afternoon was very difficult as we expected, and it was hard to stay on the road sometimes. I was trying to follow the lines but sometimes there was no line at all. I had to push to not lose too much time with Esapekka being two cars behind us: in the end we couldn’t quite keep the position but we’re still pretty close to the lead with two days to go. Let’s keep pushing.”
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