Takamoto Katsuta reveals that his engineers' analysis from Rally Estonia and sitting next to Kalle Rovanpera during their pre-event test helped the first one to finish at the podium in Finland saying that it is very important before a high-speed rally to analyze what you are doing wrong.
Katsuta gave an amazing fight with Teemu Suninen for the lowest place of the podium after the retirements of three Rally1 drivers and managed to win this battle on Sunday as he increased further his gap from his Hyundai rival. In fact, they were swapping positions all the time on Saturday afternoon with their smallest gap being at 0,1 seconds at the end of Stage 17 in favor of Suninen. Katsuta's third place in Finland gave to Toyota valuable points as the Japanese team increased its gap from the second Hyundai by ten points and now their gap is at 67 points before the start of Acropolis Rally which will be held in less than a month. Last but not least, it must be mentioned that Katsuta was comfortably in front of Suninen, but the Toyota driver had a spin in Stage 12 resulting in losing 21,5 seconds, but the positive thing is that he managed to take two stage wins on his second home rally.
"Of course, it is a big, big thing for me to be on the podium because as you know in Estonia I had a bad run there and I had no speed at all", Katsuta said.
"The team then analysed a lot and gave me things to improve.
"At the same time I was with Kalle at the test and I was in the car sitting next to him, and he was driving and giving me a lot of tips.
"This was helping me a lot to understand how to drive because in Estonia I was almost losing my confidence and everything.
"I have to give a huge thanks to Kalle and, of course, to the engineers that analysed where I was losing time in Estonia.
"Ok, the conditions were not the same as the test but at least how to use the ruts and things like that were a big, big help for me to understand how he is driving.
"For sure, in the second pass of some stages they were really rutted and Kalle gave me things from this test about how to push in the stages.
"Before a high-speed rally it is very important to analyse what you are doing wrong, so this has definitely helped me.
"For sure, I’m a lot better confidence-wise.
"The team engineers are analysing a lot and working very hard to give me a lot of things to help me improve.
"Without this it would be difficult to be in this position with this speed I would say".
Source: Motorsport.com
Photo Credits: Toyota
Post a Comment