2016 Training period 7 - SM-Ralli Turku

It was Katsuta and Arai's second challenge to SM Ralli Turku, as they made their debut in Finland in the same rally last year. It was a gravel rally driven in dry summer conditions in Western Finland.

Hiroki Arai and co-driver Glenn Macneall finished 7th in their class, and Takamoto Katsuta, with his co-driver Daniel Barritt, ended up 10th. Both crews competed with Ford Fiesta R5’s in the SM1 class.

Arai drove the entire rally matching the pace of the leaders. The differences were really small, and Arai even set the fastest time in his class on SS7. On the final stage his driving was hampered with a technical problem, as the anti-roll bar snapped mid-way through SS8 and made the car unstable. The problem couldn’t be fixed for the final stage, SS9, and Arai dropped from 6th place to 7th. He finished 34.3 seconds behind the class winners.

Takamoto Katsuta in turn drove a steady rally, putting the things he has learned into good use. Katsuta finished 10th place, 1 min 02.8 seconds behind the winners, so he wasn’t totally happy with his speed. However, thanks to his level-headed and moderate driving he reached his goal of finishing the rally. The biggest challenge for Katsuta, who has a lot of experience from circuit racing, has been reconnaissance and pacenote-making – and now he has really started to get a hang of it.

Jouni Ampuja, the chief instructor, was pleased with the result: “From a coaching point of view the rally went well. Time differences were really small throughout the class, so this was exactly the type of competition that teaches our drivers how success can depend on very small things indeed. This event also proved that our coaching programme really works, so we will continue with the same methods and focus on them even more closely.”

Their next rally, Pirelli Rally, is the final event in the Finnish Rally Championship calendar this season.