Known for its combination of fast and technical roads with a soft and sandy surface, Rally Estonia was made more demanding this year by the constantly changing weather conditions, with localised heavy rain showers affecting much of the event from shakedown on Thursday morning through to the finish on Sunday.

Katsuta began the rally looking to build confidence, particularly on stages that were new to him after retiring early in the 2021 event, but also in the mixed conditions. By keeping out of trouble, he moved up to seventh place by the end of Friday, then improved his pace on Saturday to climb to fifth position. The final day on Sunday was especially demanding with heavy rain but Katsuta was able to post the third-fastest time in both passes of the Kanepi stage (once in the dry and once in the wet) before taking fifth in the rally-ending Power Stage, where conditions were worst of all.

Together with co-driver Aaron Johnston, Katsuta has finished every rally so far this season inside the top eight – the only driver to do so apart from his championship-leading team-mate Kalle Rovanperä.

Quotes:
Takamoto Katsuta:“The conditions on this rally were very tricky and changing a lot, so it was difficult to judge what was coming. In this situation the driver needs to adjust straightaway but I was not able to do that on Friday and was struggling with my confidence, so I just tried to be smart and get through without problems. But we improved a lot up until the end of the rally. Saturday was already much better and then on Sunday I had a really good feeling with the car and even in really difficult conditions our times were quite OK. I still have to find things I can improve but I’m looking forward to the next rally in Finland, because we found things here for the setup and with the feeling that will help there.”

Juho Hänninen (TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRC Challenge Program instructor):“In the end it has been a positive weekend. The result is a good one and Taka’s driving was getting better and better. He was struggling at the start and losing time, but it was again good to see that he could still be patient. It was a really challenging rally with the conditions and when the grip level is changing a lot, this is the most challenging for him. So it’s quite clear where he has room to improve and we need to think about this for Rally Finland to see how we can give him more confidence from the car, because we could easily find similar conditions if it’s raining on that event too.”