Mikko Hirvonen (TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRC Challenge Program chief instructor):
“The plan for the Arctic Rally was to carry on from where we left off in the first event in Mikkeli, but now in a much longer rally of over 220 kilometres, and in very challenging conditions with temperatures close to -30 degrees centigrade. Once again the competition level was really high in the top category of the Finnish championship, but Jaspar, Takumi and Shotaro all did well. They gained valuable experience, didn’t make any major mistakes and learned a lot about the car. It was a positive weekend and now they just need to take forward what they’ve learned here to the next test and the next rally, and step-by-step build the feeling, the confidence and the speed. In SM2, Rio and Kanta performed strongly again. Rio was really quick from the beginning and leading the class and it was unfortunate that he had to retire on day two due to a technical issue. Kanta also had good speed and he too faced some issues along the way, which dropped him away from the lead a little bit, but he kept the fighting spirit and motivation and in the end it paid off with this fantastic result, which also puts him in the lead of the championship. This rally was also very good experience for Tomiya alongside Jarkko: a lot of things happened to them with some issues and some moments, but they came through with a podium finish.”

Shotaro Goto
“I’m happy to finish and gain the maximum mileage from this event. I was able to try many things and to find improvements. In Mikkeli, it felt like I had no idea how to drive fast, but now I could find out why I was driving slowly and how I could improve, so that’s a big positive for me from this event. I’ve found that the driving style I had with the Rally3 car is not matching so well with the Rally2 car; I need to be more committed to control the car. I also noticed many mistakes in the pacenotes, but we will do recce only at Rally Sweden and I think that will be a great chance to practice and improve this.”

Takumi Matsushita
“I’m very happy to finish this rally and I think there was big improvement for me during the event. My goal was to gain the experience and build up the confidence. On the first day, and especially in the morning, I was struggling. I was being patient and pretty cautious but bit by bit I was able to improve the speed without taking any risks. I’m starting to get more accustomed to the car, but when I get into the very fast corners, I’m still a bit too cautious, so I want to get more confident in these places for the next event and then the performance will be better.”

Jaspar Vaher
“This was a really good event for us, especially as it was held over two full days and with more mileage than usual for a Finnish championship event. It’s also a unique event with the very cold weather, which made it a bit more uncomfortable for us as drivers, but otherwise it was positive. We started out quite steadily but we were able to increase our pace a little, depending how the stage was. If the stage was fast, I felt confident to drive faster, but in the more technical roads I was still struggling a bit to find the right rhythm. Overall though I think we made good progress. The competition was full of fast Finnish drivers, and they have more experience with these cars and especially in this unique rally, but it’s good that we can compare ourselves against them. Some stage times weren’t so far away, so we have to be pleased.”

Rio Ogata
“I can be happy with the pace that we had on this rally. I was first on the road in our class and I think that helped me quite a lot, because the low temperatures meant there was probably a lot of snow dust for the drivers following behind. Each stage had a different character: on some of them I had good grip and others had more loose snow and we were sliding all the time. I feel I could adjust my driving well to the conditions. Unfortunately, I started to lose power in SS8 and had to retire on the road section to the remote service. It’s good to know my speed was not so bad until then, and I’m already looking forward to the next event.”

Kanta Yanaguida
“It’s very special for me to win and I’m happy that I can bring this result back to the team. This rally was really challenging. Some stages were very high speed and the conditions were very tough for the car with such low temperatures. We had a technical issue at the end of the first day but our mechanics did a great job so that I could drive without issues on day two. A big thanks to them and everyone in the team. I feel I have improved some things; usually Rio has been faster than me on high-speed stages but this time we were able to set similar times so that’s very positive. Still I made a few mistakes, so I want to keep improving and show stronger performance on the next rally.”

Tomiya Maekawa
“This result was not as good as it could have been but it was still good to bring the car to the finish line. We were basically maintaining good pace even though we were struggling with the quite tricky conditions. Unfortunately, on SS8 we went to the snowbank and picked up an issue on the car, so we just drove through the rest of the stage and lost quite a bit of time. Not everything went well, but still it was nice to be able to get the full experience from this very difficult rally. We will look back to analyse and try to improve for a better performance in future.”