Rally Finland is the fastest event in the FIA World Rally Championship, famed for its high-speed gravel roads in the forests around Jyväskylä – which is also home to TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team and the TGR WRC Challenge Program drivers.

This was Yamamoto’s third start at Rally Finland and his second in the GR Yaris Rally2 car – but also his first time competing on Finnish gravel for 12 months. Finnish co-driver Topi Luhtinen remained alongside Yamamoto for a second rally.

Building upon promising and consistent pace on similarly quick roads in Estonia two weeks earlier, Yamamoto showed strong speed from the beginning, setting a top-five stage time already in SS3 Saarikas on Friday morning. Even better times would come later that day, with a fourth-fastest time in SS8 Myhinpää 2 before he scored a maiden WRC2 stage win in the following test, the second pass of Ruuhimäki – where he set the same time as Jari-Matti Latvala, the TGR-WRT Team Principal and three-time Rally Finland winner also driving a GR Yaris Rally2.

Saturday brought some more challenging mixed weather conditions but Yamamoto remained consistent and climbed up from sixth to fourth in the class. He would just be pipped for fourth place on Sunday by Finnish WRC2 champion Emil Lindholm.

For the Program’s third generation drivers Shotaro Goto and Takumi Matsushita this was their first Rally Finland, giving them a chance to build upon lessons learned rallying on Finnish roads since last year. Unfortunately for Matsushita and co-driver Pekka Kelander, their rally would end on just the fourth stage due to an engine issue on their Rally3 car. Goto and co-driver Jussi Lindberg on the other hand were able to complete every stage of the rally to gain valuable experience, despite a soft slow-speed roll on Saturday afternoon.

Japanese co-driver Tomiya Maekawa took part in his first ever WRC rally alongside Finnish driver Jarkko Nikara in the Rally4 class: with just one other entry in the category, the focus was for Maekawa to gain experience. The pair would go well until an alternator issue caused them to stop with three stages remaining on Saturday; they restarted on Sunday but rolled out of the rally on the first pass of the legendary Ouninpohja stage.

Quotes:
Mikko Hirvonen (TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRC Challenge Program chief instructor):
“This was an excellent rally for Yuki. He’s really been stepping up recently like we were hoping he could and to narrow the gap to the top. He already did a good step in Estonia and continued with another one here in Finland. It was a very strong result with good stage times, so we’re very happy for him. Takumi was unlucky with the technical issue that he had which meant he wasn’t able to get the kilometres he should have from this rally. Shotaro on the other hand could at least get the mileage. He struggled a bit to really find the rhythm so we will need to look into why that was before the next rally. Unfortunately Tomiya couldn’t finish his first WRC event after a mistake from Jarkko on Sunday, but he still gained a lot of experience from the rally and all the preparation he had to do at this level.”

Yuki Yamamoto:
“This has definitely been the best rally ever for me. It’s good to finish with such a nice result in my second home rally here in Jyväskylä. I had a very good feeling with good and consistent pace, especially on Friday, when I got my first stage win. I was also happy with my pace on the second pass of Ouninpohja on Sunday. I think I can be very happy with my performance as well as the improvement from Estonia in a very short space of time. I feel things are getting better and better all the time, and without pushing too hard and just driving naturally the good times are coming. So I’m feeling good confidence for the future.”

Shotaro Goto:
“I have enjoyed the experience of my first Rally Finland but it has been a tough weekend for me. We had some issues already in testing and also in the rally. On the driving side however I feel it was much better than in Estonia. I have struggled with fast gravel roads but I feel that I’m getting good confidence, also when it comes to handling the jumps. The result is not so good but I’m quite happy about my driving.”

Takumi Matsushita:
“I was really looking forward to my first Rally Finland and my plan was to try and push a bit. It was going OK in the beginning. In Laukaa and Saarikas I was struggling a little bit but in Myhinpää I had a really good feeling. It was a stage I had driven before in the other direction and one I really like. Unfortunately after only a few kilometres the engine was broken and we had to retire from the rally. Thankfully we have another rally coming soon in Finland and I will focus on that.”

Tomiya Maekawa:
“Unfortunately we couldn’t finish this rally after we went off the road and rolled in Ouninpohja. So the end to the weekend was quite sad, but it’s also the first crash we’ve had since I started working with Jarkko this year. We had quite a nice feeling until then. The pacenotes were working quite well and we had good speed, quite similar to the Rally3 cars even though they are faster. The experience from this rally was definitely good for me and we found some improvements for the pacenotes.”