Sat in an Aichi hotel room, the power dynamic between the attendees was not as obvious as it may have looked on paper.
A driver whose Formula 1 career had only recently ended was looking to break into rallying. One of Toyota’s factory-supported racing teams in Japan had asked Norihiko Katsuta – father of current Toyota World Rally Championship driver Takamoto – and his Luck preparation firm to find a solution.
But the former F1 ace needed help, namely a co-driver who could take care of everything on his new adventure, and bed him into driving to pacenotes instead of relying on his memory.
On paper, the co-driver candidate should have been the nervous one, sat across from such a high-profile driver. This had the potential to be her big break.
The nerves didn’t show. They couldn’t. From this point on it would be up to her to lead the way.
Sae Kitagawa had been co-driving for a decade; Heikki Kovalainen had only driven one rally before.
Kitagawa and Kovalainen's partnership began aboard a Toyota GT86
“They told me, let’s do one round and see how the partnership goes,” Kitagawa told DirtFish.
That first round on Rally Toya went well enough for Kovalainen to be convinced: ”Immediately her character was likeable,” he said. “She sounded focused, confident.
“My pacenote system was new to her; numbers are standard over in Japan whereas my notes are verbal, describing the corners. But she was up for the challenge.”
They were impressed across the board. The trial was a resounding success, to the point she was also recruited to work with Team SARD and Kovalainen as a driver co-ordinator in Super GT, Japan’s biggest domestic racing series.
It would be easy to be overwhelmed in such a situation. Kitagawa suddenly had the chance to work at the pinnacle of Japanese motorsport, with a high-profile driver, all the while needing to help Kovalainen get up to speed with his new discipline quickly.
After winning our first rally together, it felt like we as a team we had the potential to become champions.Sae Kitagawa on the early days of her partnership with Heikki Kovalainen
Japanese culture, broadly speaking, values humility and frowns upon directness. The word ’no’ is generally to be avoided. Enryo (restraint) and kikubari (no direct translation, but roughly showing a delicate understanding of others’ feelings) are essential to function in Japanese society. Indirectness isn’t so useful when it comes to professional sport.
Kitagawa’s strength was in striking the balance between those two opposing needs.
“What’s good is she’ll still flag things up if something looks amiss,” explained Kovalainen. “If a note looks weird, she’ll always ask: ‘Are you sure? You said flat over crest but we’re coming through here very fast and I think you might struggle to stop the car at the next junction…just consider it!’
“She’s always listening and observing when I’m saying what to write – and she’s confident about telling me off if something’s wrong! I’ve had Flavio Briatore as my manager, so I’m very used to straight feedback if I’m doing something wrong. It’s better to highlight those issues and put the cards on the table.
“Japanese people can often be polite and quiet, not always saying things as directly as Europeans are used to. But Sae is quite direct. She says how she feels – if it’s the opposite of what I’m thinking, she’ll tell me. And in the end, we find a solution. It’s good to have a strong person like that with you.”
You wouldn’t know that while having an ordinary conversation. Speaking to Sae, she remains thoughtful and somewhat soft-spoken, always taking a few seconds of thinking time before responding to a question. Enryo and kikubari remain present – but they’re tempered by the need to be the best in a fast-paced sport.
Kitagawa is a friendly face in the service park – but when it comes time to be competitive, she easily defies stereotypes
And in Japan, she is the best. This will be her seventh season together with Kovalainen: two top-level JN-1 titles, a JN-2 support-class title and 12 wins have been the reward.
They’ve come a long way from those first rallies, where Kitagawa had to build up the level of detail in his pace notes.
“From the beginning Heikki had the theory required to make the notes. But he didn’t know how to express some details through the notes at first: distances, details, surface conditions – wet, off-camber, asphalt grade, etc,” she explained. “But he improved rapidly given his passion for rallying; he consumes so many hours of WRC onboards. During the Super GT races he would be checking the WRC results whenever he was out of the car. So while he was an ex-F1 driver, he loves rally so much.”
It took until the end of their second year working together, the 2019 Highland Rally season finale, to record a first class win aboard Rally Team Aicello’s GT86. But after that, it’s been almost nonstop success for Kitagawa and Kovalainen: the JN-2 title followed in 2021 and then a maiden JN-1 title a year later.
“After winning our first rally together, it felt like we as a team we had the potential to become champions,” said Kitagawa. “His ability to adapt is really strong; his feeling for the grip levels when conditions are mixed and the road surface changes is really good – I guess because of his time as an F1 driver. Because he drove there, the rally car speed probably doesn’t feel so high.”
The pairing's first JN-1 title in 2022 came in their first season after stepping up from the two-wheel-drive JN-2 category
Over time the dynamic has changed. Kovalainen, spending plenty of time around the world’s best co-drivers like Miikka Anttila and Janne Ferm, has now reached the point of picking up tricks to add to his pacenote system that Kitagawa hasn’t seen before. But as Kovalainen points out: “Sae gets those very quickly, she’s very sharp. Those adaptations have been understood and implemented immediately.”
For now, Kitagawa’s success has been restricted to her home country. She’s had the chance to sample the WRC both as Kovalainen’s navigator on Rally Japan and also in Portugal, Finland and Wales alongside Shunichi Washio in an R1-spec Toyota Vitz (formerly the Japanese nameplate for the Yaris).
The step up would come with pressure, no doubt. But as being thrown in the deep end with Kovalainen shows, she’s hungry for the challenge.
“OK, I’m quite old to become a regular WRC co-driver but I love rally,” said Kitagawa. “I’d like to do some rallies with friends at some point, with Heikki-san or maybe some drivers from Toyota Gazoo Racing. It would be great to go abroad and meet more of the rally community.”
