The rally was held on very fast gravel roads in the south-eastern corner of Finland, with seven stages held across Saturday (including three repeated tests) and a total of 98.02 competitive kilometres. Competing in the Finnish autumn for the first time, the drivers faced inconsistent grip levels following heavy rain before the rally.

The target for the three drivers was to build upon the experience gained and the speed already shown this year in the highly-competitive SM4 category behind the wheel of their Renault Clio Rally4 cars.

Otake, who already claimed a podium finish at the previous round in Mikkeli, made an impressive start to the event with the second-fastest time in the opening stage. Together with co-driver Marko Salminen he would finish fifth in the class at the end of the rally, less than a minute from the winner.

Yamamoto was running just behind Otake in sixth position when he and co-driver Miika Teiskonen were forced to retire because of a mechanical issue in SS4. Prior to that, Yamamoto had gained speed and confidence to set the third-quickest time in SS3, only 2.5 seconds from the fastest time.

Kogure also showed good progress over the course of the rally and took seventh position on the very last stage together with his co-driver Topi Luhtinen.

Quotes:
Hikaru Kogure:“This rally was a very nice experience and I feel I did my best performance so far. Of course the result was not great but the feeling was quite OK and the driving was quite smooth. All the stages were quite high speed and little things like tyre choice, car settings and some pacenote things can affect the times and make a big difference. So it was quite a challenging event for me, but I’m happy to be able to gain more new experience. It was quite a muddy surface and fast stages and I also realised that I need to focus more on car setup and tyre choices in the future.”

Nao Otake:“This was quite a nice rally because I tried to set good times and I was able to do that already in the first stage, so I’m so happy for that. The most challenging thing was the road conditions. In the morning it was quite muddy and slippery and after that the stages were quite rough, so it was difficult to see and judge the conditions. Over these first rallies in Finland I’ve learned a lot about pacenotes and of course I need to improve more in the future.”

Yuki Yamamoto:“I feel like this rally was the most difficult one so far for me. In the morning I was a bit nervous and pushing a bit, so my driving was not relaxed and the times were not so good in the first two stages. So I tried to change my driving style and tried to stay calm. Then in SS3 the feeling was much better and also time-wise it was good. Unfortunately we had the problem on the next stage and had to retire, but still I learned a lot. I started to have my own opinions about the setup and tyre choices and we made changes on the road section which worked out, so that was a positive thing.”

Mikko Hirvonen (TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRC Challenge Program chief instructor):“The approach going into this rally was a little bit different in that it was not only about gaining experience. The guys had already done a few rallies in Finland and we had seen their pace and were hoping they would now be able to be more consistent. A little bit of pressure in a way, to see how they manage. That Nao finished fifth overall was good and he was setting good times as well, while Hikaru was consistent and improving towards the end and able to take a position from his rival on the final stage. Yuki had also set a good stage time before he unfortunately had to stop with a technical issue again. The level in this class in Finland is really high so it’s difficult to be consistently up there, and that’s something we still want to improve upon so they are able to set really good times in every stage. They were not driving badly at all, there’s just a small bit of consistency that is still missing. The good thing is we gave them a bit of pressure but they were not overdriving and they managed their heads really well. It was a good solid performance but the work continues.”