Mikko Hirvonen (TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRC Challenge Program chief instructor)
“It was a good weekend for all our crews at Arctic Rally. Takumi and Shotaro both did a good job with quite a solid performance in what was a longer rally than they’re used to. Like everybody they were limited to a maximum of 12 tyres each for the rally and with over 200 kilometres of stages, it was something you had to pay attention to. They both went smoothly through with no big problems – just one small spin for Shotaro – and controlled their speed and their heads well. So it was good preparation for their next event at Rally Sweden, which will again be one more step up in terms of how demanding it is for them. That will also be their first experience competing with Hankook tyres, which will be one more thing to learn, but hopefully they can have a good performance and a clean rally. This was also a great first rally for Tomiya. There is so much for a co-driver to handle with the timing, preparing the pacenotes and reading them, but there were no problems with any of that and Jarkko was really happy with how Tomiya was managing everything.”

Shotaro Goto
“I had missed most of my previous two rallies because of a crash and an electrical issue, so I’m really happy to be able to finish this rally. After the problem in Kuopio, this was really my first chance to drive competitively with four-wheel drive, so my focus was on completing the full event and gaining lots of experience. It was challenging but I’m happy with how it went and the experience I gained. Rally Sweden will be my first WRC event and I’m really excited for that.”

Takumi Matsushita
“What a rally! The Arctic Rally is a very traditional rally and also a very long rally, and I’ve never experienced such a rally before. After the good result in Kuopio, I wanted to push, but my main priority for such a long rally was to be consistent and finish the rally. On the first day I was struggling a bit with the car behaviour, but on the second day I had more confidence with the car and I could push a little bit more, which gave me a good feeling. Hopefully next time I can push even more and aim for a better result.”

Tomiya Maekawa
“This was my first rally with Jarkko and we had a good feeling through the week. Although we unfortunately had to retire due to a technical issue, we were in second place until then and we will keep pushing to make the podium. There were a lot of new things for me, but thanks to the strong support from the team, I could concentrate on my job and I could gain a lot of experience. It was also good to compete on the same rally as Jussi and Pekka, the co-drivers of Shotaro and Takumi, so I could compare my plans and so on with theirs and could find many ideas. Now I’m looking forward to doing the recce at Rally Sweden, which will be my first time at a WRC event outside of Japan.”