Takamoto Katsuta has explained what led to his crash on Rally Sweden, and relayed the damage done to his Toyota GR Yaris Rally1.
Katsuta had been running a competitive fifth after Friday morning, 7.1 seconds down on then-leader Ott Tänak with a stage win in his pocket from SS4.
But the first repeated stage of the rally, Brattby, proved to be Katsuta’s downfall as he smacked a snowbank with the rear right of his Toyota which pitched him into a roll.
Katsuta managed to make it to the end of the stage, but his car had suffered extensive damage to the front and rear.
He and co-driver Aaron Johnston however managed to bodge a repair and made it to the start of SS6, but around two miles onto the Sarsjöliden test Katsuta was forced to park his Toyota with rising engine temperatures.
DirtFish intercepted Katsuta as he walked out of the stage, and he explained how he had managed to crash.
“Basically, already before this corner there is a lot of snow and some really deep ruts,” Katsuta told DirtFish.
“I braked a bit but the car didn’t stop because of really deep ruts, it’s like rails. Then somehow I lost the line a bit, was overspeeding and I tried to manage it to make a big, big angle to use the snowbank but obviously it was way too fast.”
Katsuta then explained that, bizarrely, it was damage done on the road section – not the roll itself – that ultimately led to his retirement.
“We fixed it on the road section and it was quite OK but obviously we had a lot of damage and somehow we got another damage on the road section because a lot of the carbon parts and things are along the radiators,” Katsuta said.
“Then finally we got another damage on the engine side and then we had to stop.”
Asked if the damaged engine would be OK to restart the rally tomorrow, Katsuta replied: “I am really hoping so but let’s see.
“We have also other damage on the chassis side. The rollcage looks OK but I just follow what the team decides and I’m really sorry for the team.”
