The intake of breath was audible. Saturday morning and the Central European Rally’s only all-Austrian stage was being beamed into Toyota’s corner of the service park. Cut to a shot of Takamoto Katsuta drifting beautifully across the grass. Not a road in sight.
Breath was held. And held. Finally, the road. He’s back on it. He survived.
Katsuta was, of course, far from the only driver to spend time on the grass last week, but it’s fair to say the stakes were probably higher for the Japanese, were he to find an immoveable object buried in the turf. Back after being benched for the South American trip to Chile, Taka was a man with a three-day plan for the WRC’s cross-border adventure.
He was going to go fast, but not too fast on Friday, faster on Saturday and fastest on Sunday. Lawn mowing moment aside, he delivered on that plan quite brilliantly.
By the time he reached DirtFish on Sunday evening, he was back to his bright, beaming best. And he was certainly fastest, landing his first 12-point Sunday with two scratch times from four and the all-important high five from the powerstage.
Smile restored, Katsuta delivered an almost perfect performance on CER
“It was a very good Sunday,” he grinned. “I was chatting also with my boss, [Toyota technical director] Tom Fowler about the plan this morning. He said to me: “You can push now…” I said I would. I was waiting for this moment for the whole weekend.
“We followed our strategy and the plan and this is why I was able to push today otherwise a mistake could happen yesterday or two days ago and [the rally would be a] different story. I have to say a huge thanks to the whole team and how they supported me and how they gave me this car that was really working well.
“I must say it was not really easy and I would say I could still do something better for the future; I’m still looking at what I can do for the future to be better. But this was kind of a good research.
Katsuta now heads to his homeland reinvigorated
“I was already thinking a lot but then I had time to think more with all the people around me and I was able to see that who is really supporting me and who I really need to listen to.
“That was a nice kind of moment with what kind of people I have around and I really appreciate all of them. Life is tough so some tough moments can happen in the future still. But last month and two months ago was kind of one of the toughest moments of my life.”
And the grass?
“Ah, did you see? It was a nice drift… But it felt like I was on the grass for 10 minutes!”
