Famed for its high-speed gravel roads and their many jumps and crests, Rally Finland has long been a favourite of Katsuta’s and considered as a second home event by the Japanese driver, who has lived in the host city Jyväskylä, close to the TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team base, for several years and competed regularly on Finnish roads earlier in his career.

Katsuta, co-driven by Aaron Johnston, showed good and consistent pace through the first full day of the rally on Friday, and for the second year in a row claimed a stage win on the streets of his adopted hometown in the short Harju test.

He ended the day sixth overall, only three seconds from fifth, and looked set to gain the position in demanding wet conditions on Saturday morning only to spin in a tricky junction. He continued to put up a strong fight against Thierry Neuville until dropping away after a more costly spin in the day’s final stage. On Sunday he clinched what is his seventh consecutive top-six finish, which ensured he remains one of only two drivers (alongside championship leader and team-mate Kalle Rovanperä) to have finished inside the points in every rally so far in 2022.

Quotes:
Takamoto Katsuta:“It was a good rally for me and I’m happy to have finally completed my second home rally. On Friday I was enjoying some good fights, but the main problem was on Saturday when I was struggling with my confidence and the conditions. The grip levels were inconsistent, I started to make some mistakes and I lost the opportunity to fight with Thierry. But on the last day we changed something on the car and I had a good feeling and got back some of the confidence I had on Friday. The car was working well and was more predictable for me. Still I need to improve when the conditions are changing but I was better at this in Finland than in Estonia, so that was a positive.”

Juho Hänninen (TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRC Challenge Program instructor):“Again this was a good, solid weekend for Takamoto, and like in Estonia it was great for him to complete this event fully for the first time at the top level. He was struggling a bit on Saturday afternoon with the confidence and he had the spin at the end of the day, but I don’t think that affected the final result too much. There were quite a lot of setup changes during the rally and the change that was made for Sunday was positive for him and he was really happy with that. As a team we have learned a lot with the car and about what helps Taka to get the best performance from it, and that’s really important for the two remaining gravel rallies this year.”