Training Report Vol.3 - WRC Rally Portugal/Rally Italia Sardegna
After three tarmac rallies with R2 cars in the spring season, Takamoto Katsuta and Hiroki Arai participated in two WRC events in the southern Europe, each at the wheel of a Ford Fiesta R5. Katsuta and Arai faced a new challenge as the loose gravel stages in Portugal and Sardinia are very different from the roads in Finland which they have been training on and are accustomed to.
Rali de Baiao / Amarante （5-6 May. 2017）
Katsuta and Arai participated in a gravel rally in Portugal as a preparation for the WRC Rally Portugal coming in two weeks. The main purposes were to get a good feeling back with R5 cars and to find the best possible car setup for the loose gravel surface in Portugal. As the rally included two stages used in the last year's WRC event, it offered a good opportunity of preparation and practice to both drivers.
There were two super special stages on the first day and Katsuta was 2nd and Arai was 3rd at the end of the day. On the next day both had some troubles such as spins, but they still led the rally. Arai won from Katsuta following a very tight battle where they were separated by just tenths of a second, ahead of all the local experts.
#6 Katsuta ："I changed my style of driving and pacenote making in this rally because the stages here were completely different from those in Finland. My feeling to the pacenote has become much better in a quite short period, which surprises even myself. It was frustrating that I spun at a hairpin corner but I could get better understanding on this kind of gravel stages through the mistakes."
#8 Arai："I'm very glad as this is my first overall victory in my rally career. I have made some changes in pacenote making to measure corner length by the 10 meters from this rally. It made me very busy and tired during recce, but I was able to keep constant driving thanks to the accurate notes. It also affected the braking accuracy. This rally gave me a good preparation opportunity for WRC event for sure."
Rally Report
RESULT
#45 Takamoto Katsuta/Marko Salminen Class 14th, 36th overall (Ford Fiesta R5) 4:45:33.8
#44 Hiroki Arai/Glenn Macneall Retire (Ford Fiesta R5)
Rally Portugal , round six of the World Rally Championship, was the third WRC event for Katsuta and Arai after Rally Sweden in February and Rally Finland last summer. Although they had a very good preparation event in Amarante two weeks earlier, they did not enjoy similar good luck on the WRC round.
On Friday morning, both cars hit trouble. Katsuta was forced into retirement from the day with a broken steering rack: due to the constant impacts from the rough gravel surface. Arai was also in difficulty, when he had a puncture and broke a wheel. The broken wheel then proved to be nearly impossible to remove, costing a total of 15 minutes. On top of that, he was hampered by a consistent problem with the pop-off valve, which meant that the car could not deliver full power and he had to turn down the turbo boost pressure. Much worse was to come for Arai: on Saturday afternoon he went off and his car caught fire, burning out completely before the crew had a chance to extinguish the blaze. In the meantime, Katsuta had returned under the Rally 2 regulations on Saturday morning and was able to set some promising times, although he also had no chance of sealing a representative result because of his earlier problems. Having completed the majority of the stages, he ended up 14th in class at the rally finish.
RESULT
#38 Takamoto Katsuta/Marko Salminen Class 3rd, 14th overall (Ford Fiesta R5) 3:43:38.4
#37 Hiroki Arai/Glenn Macneall Retire (Ford Fiesta R5)
Katsuta scored his best-ever World Rally Championship result on Rally Italia Sardegna, finishing third in the hotly-contested WRC2 category. Arai set some promising times, but was unable to get to the end.
Rally Italia Sardegna, round seven of the World Rally Championship, consisted of slow and twisty gravel roads with a hard surface, which became particularly rocky during the second run. Adding to the challenge were extremely high temperatures in excess of 30 degrees centigrade.
Katsuta, co-driven by Marko Salminen, drove a fast and mistake-free rally throughout all four days to end up on the WRC2 podium. They only experienced two problems, both on Saturday. On SS11, the engine died around four kilometres from the end, but the problem solved itself just as suddenly as it started. Then on SS15, the day's last stage, the duo got a front-left puncture: luckily only around two kilometres from the end of the stage, so they could drive to the finish.
Arai and his co-driver Glenn Macneall hit trouble as soon as the rally began, stopping with an electrical problem on their way back from Thursday night's super special stage. They completed all of Friday's stages and grew in speed and confidence with every kilometre, but went off on Saturday's third stage, becoming wedged on a rock. They came back on Sunday but hit a rock on the second stage that broke a left-hand driveshaft and suspension arm.
Hiroki Arai
On Friday in Portugal, ruts and stones on the second loop were beyond my expectation. I tried to avoid them, but I got a puncture and a wheel was broken into two. I changed my setting to have softer spring on Saturday from the learnings of the previous day. During the last stage on Sunday, I went off the course and fire started immediately. It was very sad and painful to see the car burnt down. This was the rally I learnt so many things.
In Sardinia, I tried to reduce the pressure to my left foot breaking to look after the break in the very rough and hot condition. My feeling got better stage by stage, but I still got overheated break on the long stages. I still need to improve my breaking in the slow speed section. Positive thing was that my split times on some stages were very close to the top drivers'. It’s disappointing that the time didn’t lead to the result at the end, but I’m sure my skills are improving. So I try to be patient and put my best effort in the next rally.
Comment from Chief instructor, Jouni Ampuja
The aim for the beginning of the Rally Portugal was to leave enough margins to the speed and then gradually increase the pace. Unfortunately both drivers faced problems already on Friday. Even though the weekend didn’t go as we planned the rally offered a good place to measure where the drivers are standing at the moment when comparing them to top WRC2 drivers.
As expected, Sardinia offered the roughest conditions that Katsuta and Arai have faced so far in their career. Arai had a very tough rally with many problems. He especially suffered from a braking issue. After winning in Amarante, he had two very tough rallies, but we expect he will overcome this tough period. Katsuta had a very strong weekend in Sardinia. He was able to follow the instructions given before the rally and did a mistake-free rally. It’s great to see that his hard work with Salminen starts to pay off. We will keep working hard for further improvements.
Takamoto Katsuta
Because of the rough surface expected in Portugal, my target was to have a trouble-free rally, but so many things happened from the beginning to the very last moment. On Friday, I was forced to retire due to a broken steering rack. It was very disappointing but I tried to switch my mind next day and tried various settings. Thanks to that I could finally capture the sense of a suitable driving style on this kind of surface. It was a very tough rally, but I'm happy that I could have a mistake-free rally to the end.
Sardinia was even more difficult than Portugal. Again my goal was to have mistake-free rally, and at the result I could have the best rally ever. Temperature was very high and the condition was very rough, so I tried to drive as smooth as possible taking good care of break and tires throughout the rally. I think I could find the best possible driving style for my current level. Cooperation with Marko is getting better and better, and I'm confident we can do better in the next rally.