Training report of the "Challange Program"
- a program to support young Japanese rally drivers
日本語TOYOTA GAZOO Racing established this "Challenge Program" in 2015 to support young Japanese drivers with passion for motorsport, and to raise awareness of rally in Japan to increase rally and car fans. Two drivers were finally chosen out of 71 candidates and their first training started on 22 June, 2015. On the report pages below, we will follow how the drivers develop through the training in Finland and rally participation in Europe with the strong cooperation of Tommi Makinen Racing.
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- Training period 1, 22 Jun. - 27 Jun. 2015>>
The first training's target was to simply improve their rally driving skills, focusing on the driving lines and balancing the car with left-foot braking.
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- Training period 2, 02 Aug. - 06 Aug. 2015>>
By using the roads used for WRC Rally Finland, the second training took place by focusing on the driving skills and the pacenote skills. Co-drivers joined from this training.
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- Training period 3 (incl. Turku Rally) , 24 Aug. - 30 Aug. 2015>>
After the three days training around Jyvaskyla, Takamoto and Hiroki participated in Turku rally, the 5th round of the Finnish Rally Championship on 28-29th August. It was their first actual rally as a part of this program.
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- Training period 4 (incl. Pirelli Rally) 19 Sep. - 26 Sep. 2015 >>
The main objective of the fourth training was to improve their pacenote and navigation skills. After Leppavirta Rally Sprint and the following 4-day training, Takamoto Katsuta and Hiroki Arai participate in Pirelli Rally Tampere, the final round of the Finnish Rally Championship.
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- Training period 5 , 12 Oct. - 21 Oct. 2015>>
As the fifth and last training in 2015, Arai and Katsuta participated in Rally Latvia in October after the three days training in Finland. The main objective was to get their confidence back to normal level after the big crash in the previous rally...
