Takamoto Katsuta takes his second WRC 2 win in Chile
Takamoto Katsuta claimed the second WRC 2 victory of his career with a fine performance on the inaugural Rally Chile. The success follows the TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Rally Challenge Program driver’s maiden triumph in Sweden in 2018.
Katsuta/Barritt
This was the first time that Chile had held a round of the FIA World Rally Championship, with the event based on gravel roads in forests around the city of Concepción. The rally featured a wide variety of different characteristics and conditions: often fast and flowing but also highly technical in places. The event tested the crews’ abilities to create pace-notes from scratch, while tyre selection was also challenging without past experience to rely upon. Driving a Ford Fiesta R5 in the WRC 2 class with Dan Barritt as his co-driver, Katsuta was up against several local drivers who could benefit from existing knowledge of national rallies in Chile. These were led by brothers Pedro and Alberto Heller: like Katsuta, both were previous winners of WRC 2 rounds.
Katsuta was quick from the start of the event, winning the opening stage and two more on Friday, but a wrong tyre choice for the afternoon loop meant he ended the day 24.5 seconds behind Alberto Heller. During Saturday, Katsuta fought back brilliantly and reclaimed the class lead when he was 13.3 seconds faster than anyone else through the day’s final test. He further added to his lead in the first stage on Sunday morning before his main rival then crashed out, with Katsuta clinching victory by over three minutes in the end.
Jarkko Miettinen (TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Rally Challenge Program instructor)
“This was a great result from Taka, Dan and the team. We were looking for a win from our South American tour and now it came through Taka driving well and fast. This was a new rally for everyone, but we have to remember that most of the events this year are new for Taka. The result shows that the crew has done good work during the recce and found the correct set up during the pre-event test on Monday. Congratulations!”
Tommi Mäkinen (TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Rally Challenge Program supervisor)
“This was a good drive from Takamoto. He gained some good experience and did really well over the tricky stages here in Chile, making no mistakes whatsoever with his driving. I’m sure that he learnt a lot during the weekend: The stages were very demanding and so were the conditions. I’m sure that he can take the experience and confidence from this result into his next events.”
WRC2 Results:
1 Takamoto Katsuta/Daniel Barritt (Ford Fiesta R5) 3h29m26.7s
2 Benito Guerra/Jaime Zapata (Skoda Fabia R5) +3m06.1s
3 Alejandro Cancio/Santiago Garcia (Skoda Fabia R5) +5m07.2s
4 Cristobal Vidaurre/Ruben Garcia (Skoda Fabia R5) +5m27.3s
5 Samuel Israel/Nicolas Garcia (Citroën C3 R5) +6m37.7s
What’s next?
Katsuta will contest his second event in a World Rally Car at Riihimäki Ralli (May 24-25), a round of the Finnish Rally Championship. This will be his first gravel rally in the Toyota Yaris WRC, having claimed victory on snow in the Itäralli in March. Katsuta will then return to WRC 2 on Rally Portugal the following weekend.
Pictures will be uploaded here during the event
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TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Rally Challenge Program is supported by Otsuka Pharmaceutical.
Quotes:
Takamoto Katsuta
“I’m happy to have won the WRC 2 class here in Chile. It was a very difficult rally. Each day had quite a different type of stage and the conditions were challenging, especially the fog we had on some stages. We also had fog in the recce too, so our pace-notes were not perfect. We lost a lot of time on Friday afternoon because I made the wrong decision to take the harder compound tyre, but we were able to catch up on Saturday when my feeling was much better. We managed to have a clean run through the stages and I found a lot of ways that I can improve, so this is a very positive thing. I need to keep working hard and I’m sure that I can be faster and stronger in the future.”