2016 TRAINING PERIOD 8 - PIRELLI RALLI
TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Rally Challenge Program is well underway in Finland, led by Tommi Makinen. Two young Japanese drivers, Takamoto Katsuta and Hiroki Arai participated in the final rally of the Finnish Rally Championship, Pirelli Ralli, driven around the city of Tampere, Finland.
TRAINING OBJECTIVES
This is the final rally of the program this year for Katsuta and Arai. Target for both drivers is to gain experience on the challenging roads, to improve performance level, and to get constant stage times and reduce the time gap to the leading drivers.
SCHEDULE
| 15, 16, 19 Sep. | Pacenote training |
| 20-21 Sep. | Driving training/testing |
| 23 Sep. | Pirelli Ralli - Tampere (Recce, SS1-2) |
| 24 Sep. | Pirelli Ralli - Tampere (SS3-SS9) |
Pacenote Training
The purpose for the training this time was to improve the pacenote skills such as making pacenotes faster and more accurate. Katsuta deepened his understanding of pacenotes and Arai added a few more vocabulary into his pacenotes, which made him improve the accuracy and speed while driving.
TEST SESSION
Test session was done under the similar conditions to those in upcoming rally. On the first day, they started driving later in the afternoon as one challenging stage on Day1 would be driven in twilight and dark. The roads used on the second day were faster but still very challenging roads which were also close to the characteristics of Tampere rally route.
PIRELLI RALLI
| DAY1 (23 Sep.) | Recce | SS1 Teivo (2.12 km) | SS2 Pengonpohja (14.65 km) |
| DAY2 (24 Sep.) | SS3 Savo (8.45 km) | SS4 Uskila 1 (24.19 km) | SS5 Saterin kihara (3.2 km) | SS6 Uskila 2 (24.19 km) | SS7 Savo 2 (8.25 km) | SS8 Henkka (17.34 km) | SS9 Ekojarvi (18.20 km) |
Pirelli Ralli is known for its challenging roads, and that was the case this year too. Some of the legendary special stages are also familiar from the Finnish round of the World Rally Championship, such as the extremely difficult and fast-paced stage Savo. Pirelli Ralli 2016 consisted of 120.59 special stage kilometres, 9 stages in total.
The final rally of the season went well for both drivers, who drove with their Ford Fiesta R5’s in the SM1 class. Hiroki Arai held his nerve and he and his co-driver Glenn Macneall clinched 3rd place in the tough rally, setting fastest times on no less than three special stages along the way. Arai finished 9.6 seconds behind winner Juha Salo and fell only 1.8 seconds short of 2nd place.
“I’m feeling pretty good. We made some changes to the pacenotes during last week’s testing, and that really worked. The next step that I need to take is to focus on getting my driving more natural at the moment, driving is a lot of work and I need to concentrate hard. It needs to come naturally, without trying too hard”, Arai muses.
Also Takamoto Katsuta, who finished 8th in his class with his co-driver Daniel Barritt, managed to set one fastest time. “In this rally, I did what we planned to do, i.e. finish all the stages. And on top of that, I even got one fastest stage time on SS5, so I'm very happy about that. The stages were really tricky and hard here! I need to continue learning recce and pacenote-making in order to be able to improve my speed in the future. Hard work and concentrating on the rallying that’s the plan for next year”, Katsuta said.
Chief instructor, Jouni Ampuja after the rally:
"Arai’s performance was good. Unfortunately the gap grew a bit too big on two special stages, there’s no room for such things when you are driving for the win. After he found his routine, his pace was once again extremely good, which could be seen straightaway in the fastest stage times and in the good fight he fought right ‘til the end.” "Katsuta also set a fastest time on one special stage and he was able to finish the rally. However, Katsuta’s pace is still hindered by his lack of experience with pacenotes. His speed is always fine in testing, when he becomes familiar with the road, so now it’s just the case of getting even more of that routine for driving in actual competitions.”
Jouni Ampuja was proud of both drivers who reached their goals for this season. “There were a lot of new things this season a move into bigger cars and driving full-length rallies too. The number of fastest stage times is very pleasing, which shows that we have been doing the right things. Those fastest times don’t come out of thin air, you know.”
DRIVER’S DIARY
Takamoto Katsuta
Objectives
To finish the rally as this is the final round of the year
To have smooth run without big mistakes and to reduce the time gap with top drivers stage by stage
What I felt through the rally
It was a very high speed rally and I felt it was a most tricky and difficult rally in Finnish Rally Championship. I had a hard time in making pacenotes but thanks to Daniel's advices I could manage to make simple but still accurate pacenotes. Making and listening pacenotes in night stages was very good training for me.
What I learned
I could finish the rally with very good feeling as I could complete the rally and reduce the gap gradually without pushing myself. Because of the tricky stages I could clearly see my challenges and what I am missing at this point. In my pacenotes some places during the last stage were not perfectly done, so I tried to my best driving by keeping enough margin. I had a puncture on the way, but I could get good confidence as the split time before the puncture was quite good. Through the year communication with Daniel got better and better and I became able to listen to the English pacenotes more naturally during stages.
SUMMARY
Comparing this FRC rally to the previous one, the stages were much more challenging for all the drivers. Both Katsuta and Arai gained a lot of good competition experience on these tricky roads. For this rally we wanted that the drivers could stay constant on their normal performance level. While competing they tend to lose time a lot on some stages while on the other stages they are capable of setting fastest times. Both have a lot to improve on their constancy. But we are quite happy with their performance through the year as they have reached their goals for this season. We are looking forward to see their further improvements.
Hiroki Arai
Objectives
To overcome the issues on my pacenotes which I have been working on for one year
What I felt through the rally
In this rally there were many traditional stages in Finland, and I felt perfection level of pacenotes really affected the results. Because local drivers already know the stages very well, it was challenging to beat them. So the pacenotes accuracy was very important and it was directly linked to the result. It was the best opportunity to try what I have been working on during this year.
What I learned
From this rally I added a few vocabulary to describe roads into my pacenotes, for example the expression to adjust the timing to accelerate according to the road figures and condition. What I have been trying with Glen finally worked well, and as a result I could achieve top time on three stages including Savo, which was a very complicated stage with many crests and jumps. My next challenge is to be able to distinguish the lines where I can cut and cannot during recce.