It’s not really a team order, it’s more of an advisory. But it’s one that will be music to the ears of Japanese rally fans ahead of this week’s World Rally Championship finale: Takamoto Katsuta you are cleared to shoot for the stars in Toyota City.
With Toyota’s biggest brains running all sorts of calculations and permutations on what needs to be done to extend three years of back-to-back manufacturers’ title domination into a fourth season, Katsuta is free to push for the win he came so close to at home last year.
We know this, because team principal Jari-Matti Latvala told DirtFish.
After sitting out Rally Chile, Katsuta’s return to a GR Yaris Rally1 at the Central European Rally couldn’t have gone better. He did precisely what he was told. In three days, he went from steady to less steady to fastest.
Delighted with Katsuta’s pace in Passau, Latvala was quick to underline the approach for the 13th and final round of the season.
“Yes, definitely,” was the answer to the obvious question. “Taka is allowed to push for the win in Japan.
“In CER, he was really good, really good. He had the reset with no driving for almost six weeks and then he came back to do exactly what we asked him to. He increased the speed and everything looked really natural with the speed – and on the final day we saw that he was attacking at the right level with the right confidence. I’m looking forward to Japan.”
The Finn’s not the only one. Thousands of fans will line the roads in and around Toyota City next week, hoping for a repeat of the form their man showed through the weekend. After going off on the Friday morning run through Isegami’s Tunnel, Katsuta was an absolute sensation through Saturday, winning every stage of significance in the strongest single day of his career to date.
More of the same, times three would go down very well this week.
