Held as the penultimate round of the 2023 FIA World Rally Championship, the Central European Rally marked a return to asphalt for the first time since the Croatia Rally in April and consisted of unfamiliar stages in Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria. These stages varied in character and featured frequent surface changes, while autumnal weather added to the challenge as expected.

Heavy rain hit the rally region for the first full day of stages on Friday, making the narrow but fast Czech roads particularly tricky. Katsuta, co-driven by Aaron Johnston, made it through the day without major incident in fifth position overall.

Saturday was drier but still challenging with plenty of mud being dragged onto the roads. Battling with Hyundai driver Teemu Suninen, Katsuta conceded position at the end of the morning loop, but returned for the afternoon with much stronger pace, always within the top-four stage times and quickly regained fifth overall. He carried that speed into Sunday, increasing his margin over Suninen and setting the fourth-best time in the rally-ending Power Stage.

Quotes:
Takamoto Katsuta:“This was such a difficult and demanding rally but it was very good experience for me. The weather and the grip was changing a lot. I struggled on Saturday morning but then the team’s engineers found a better setup for me and I felt more confident after that. In the end, I was feeling very good with the car. Of course, there are some areas where I could still improve, and I could have pushed harder if I was happy to drive really on the limit. But after a very demanding weekend, it’s nice to finish fifth overall. It’s also important to finish with this good feeling on asphalt as it will help me to be more confident and comfortable going into Rally Japan. There are different kinds of challenging roads there compared to Europe, but I will definitely try to push and to get another good result at my home rally.”

Juho Hänninen (TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRC Challenge Program instructor):“This was a difficult week for all the drivers with a completely new rally, and the conditions were tough with the heavy rain and the mud being brought onto the road. We’re happy that Taka found a good step with his pace during Saturday, and after that he was setting some nice times. Over the weekend we learned a lot in terms of what we need to improve and work on for these conditions, so there’s a lot to take from this event for Rally Japan and into the future.”