TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team closed the gap to the competition going into the final day of the season as it ended Saturday at Rally Japan with Elfyn Evans in second position and Sébastien Ogier in third.
Evans began the day with a stage win in the brand-new Mount Kasagi test and arrived to the mid-day tyre-fitting zone in Nakatsugawa with a reduced deficit of 15.3 seconds to the leader Ott Tänak (Hyundai). With Tänak replying in the afternoon the gap grew once more to 38s, but Evans nonetheless ended the day in second place to provisionally secure 13 points from the first part of the rally.
Ogier was the quickest driver across the day as he continued his fightback from a puncture early on Friday. Starting the day in fifth place, he had climbed up into third by the start of the afternoon before then winning the next two stages. He finished the day 8.2s in front of Adrien Fourmaux (M-Sport Ford). Takamoto Katsuta was also part of the battle for third throughout the day, finishing it 6.1s further back.
With its top two cars in the top three at the end of Saturday, TGR-WRT provisionally reduces the gap to the lead of the manufacturers’ championship to 11 points ahead of Sunday, where up to seven points are available for the fastest drivers across the day along with up to five more for the quickest in the rally-ending Power Stage.
In WRC2, GR Yaris Rally2 driver Sami Pajari is holding second place in the category: a position that would be enough for him to be crowned champion if he can maintain it on Sunday.
Quotes:
Jari-Matti Latvala (Team Principal)
“Today we tried to push to gain some more positions. Elfyn was driving well this morning and was able to get a bit closer to Ott, but in the afternoon unfortunately he was losing more time so we need to work to understand why that was. Ending Saturday with second and third positions is good, but being in the lead would have been even better. Seb had a really good day today, fighting back to third position which we really needed as a team. From Taka, we wanted a similar performance to the Central European Rally, he’s been able to do that and tomorrow there’s the possibility to attack more. So far we’re outscoring our rivals and tomorrow we need to be all-in, target the top positions on Super Sunday and the Power Stage and see what happens.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“We made a pretty strong start this morning when the conditions were not easy and we were hoping to keep the pressure on in the afternoon. Unfortunately it didn’t turn out that way. The feeling was not so bad in the car but we were struggling just a little bit in the slower speed sections and that was resulting in quite a big time loss. Things were OK in the faster places but there weren’t so many of them. So we’re looking with the team tonight to understand it and try to put it right for tomorrow, when we need to give a final push and do what we can.”
Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)
“It’s been a positive day for us. We were the fastest over the day with three stage wins, and we got back to the podium places to bank good points for the team, so I think there was not much more we could do. Of course I would have loved even more but our chances in the manufacturers’ championship are still alive up until the last day of the season, and we need to give it everything. We just have to push for the maximum points from Sunday and hope for some luck on our side, and in rallying you never know what can happen.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“It’s good to reach the end of today: this was one of the main targets for me. There were some difficulties during the day – I had a spin in the last stage of the morning and lost a few seconds there – but I felt some good feelings from the car as well so I was able to set some good times. Overall everything was OK. Tomorrow is going to be a very important day for the team as well, so I just need to try and find even better feeling and focus on that.”
End of day three (Saturday):
1 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) 2h39m48.0s
2 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +38.0s
3 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +2m10.9s
4 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) +2m19.1s
5 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +2m25.2s
6 Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) +3m07.1s
7 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +7m43.7s
8 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Citroën C3 Rally2) +7m55.9s
9 Sami Pajari/Enni Mälkönen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +9m21.2s
10 Hiroki Arai/Shunsuke Matsuo (Škoda Fabia R5) +10m12.6s
(Results as of 19:45 on Saturday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
What's next?
The final day’s action takes place mostly to the south-east, where the Nukata and Lake Mikawako stages are both driven twice. There’s also third and last running of the Toyota Stadium super special between final service and the rally-ending Power Stage at Lake Mikawako.
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