A trio of young Japanese drivers – Hikaru Kogure, Nao Otake and Yuki Yamamoto – were chosen in February to join the programme and in April they moved to Finland (home of the TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team) to begin full-time training. Each driver has been paired with an experienced Finnish co-driver, with whom they have been working over recent weeks to develop their pacenotes. At the same time, they have been testing in the two-wheel drive Renault Clio Rally4 cars they will use for their first rallies in Europe.

The Pohjanmaa Ralli is a typical Finnish gravel rally held on very fast roads in the west of the country around the city of Seinäjoki. The event consisted of eight stages, all of which were to be run only once, which meant that the three crews had 128.18 kilometres to recce and write fresh pacenotes for before the rally got underway. The first two stages were held on Friday evening in sunny, dry and dusty conditions, but the remaining six took place amid heavy rain on Saturday.

With their focus on learning as much as possible from this totally new challenge, all three drivers were able to make it through each of the stages without incident until the fifth stage, when Otake and his co-driver Marko Salminen unfortunately had to stop and retire because of a technical issue. Otake had been running in sixth position in the SM4 class at the time, just ahead of his team-mates.

Yamamoto, co-driven by Miika Teiskonen, and Kogure, navigated by Topi Luhtinen, both reached the finish of the rally without major issues. With the conditions catching out some other competitors in their class, Yamamoto was able to finish in fourth position and Kogure finished fifth. There were only 20 seconds separating the two drivers – 10 seconds of which was because of a penalty for Kogure following a false start.

The three drivers will now continue their programme of training and testing in readiness for their next competitive rally, which will be confirmed at a later date.

Quotes:
Hikaru Kogure:“This was a very challenging rally, especially because the conditions were changing a lot in every stage. On Friday evening the sun was very low and there was some dust from the cars ahead, so it was really difficult to see. Then the second day was really muddy and slippery. So I was very happy to reach the finish. It was really good experience. I will do my best to improve for the next rally, especially with my pacenotes so that I can have more trust in my driving. Thank you to the team and to my co-driver Topi for their support.”

Nao Otake:“It was disappointing to not be able to finish the rally. But, until that point, this rally was quite a nice experience for me. It was my first time competing on such fast roads and the conditions were very difficult. There were so many things that were new for me, so I was able to learn a lot. In some places I found that my pacenotes were not so good, in particular for my braking points, and I learned some new things that will help me to improve this for the future. Thanks to the team and to my co-driver Marko, who is helping me a lot with his experience.”

Yuki Yamamoto:“I’m really happy to have finished my first rally in Finland, and I want to say thank you to the team and my co-driver Miika. Many things happened during the rally and we experienced many different conditions. I could find a good rhythm when the conditions were nice, but when it was slippery it was difficult to find any grip and to feel comfortable and in a good rhythm. The biggest challenge was to picture the road ahead only from the pacenotes, because they were not so precise, so this is something I want to improve for next time.”

Mikko Hirvonen (TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRC Challenge Program chief instructor):“For this first rally we didn’t set any targets in terms of results or speed, because we knew there was so much that would be new for the drivers. We were just looking for the consistent driving that we had seen in the tests, and for them to finish the rally to gain as much experience as possible. In the end, the most difficult thing was the conditions: Both with the low sun and the dust on Friday and then the rain and the mud on Saturday. This obviously affected their rhythm and confidence, so it certainly wasn’t an easy start for them. The good thing is that both Yuki and Hikaru finished the rally and gained that experience; unfortunately Nao couldn’t join them because of the technical issue. But overall we are happy with this first rally and now we will analyse the onboard videos and the data, which will give us ideas as to what we need to concentrate on for the future. ”