After a lively first half to the World Rally Championship season, Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala would like to see Takamoto Katsuta return to the podium in the second half of the year.
Katsuta has three WRC podiums to date – two of which have come on Safari Rally Kenya in 2021 and ’22, with the other scored at home on last season’s Rally Japan.
But the Toyota driver has struggled to replicate the same consistent form that he found last year, lying eighth in the world championship after seven of 2023’s eight rounds.
Earlier in the season Katsuta crashed in Sweden – his first event as a fully-fledged Toyota-nominated driver in the manufacturers’ championship – and México, and was forced to super-rally in both Portugal (with an alternator issue) and Sardinia after approaching a water-splash too quickly.
Katsuta was however in the fight for the podium on last month’s Safari Rally, but eventually had to settle fourth behind all three of his Toyota team-mates after a messy weekend in which he crashed on shakedown and survived a couple of off-road moments throughout the rally itself.
It was a battling performance which impressed Latvala, but the Finn – who himself will compete on Rally Finland next month – is hoping Katsuta’s turn of speed can begin producing results again.
“It is amazing that Taka has made three starts in Kenya and that his results have been second, third and fourth. That for me is pretty remarkable on such a demanding rally,” Latvala said.
“We saw some action on that event from Taka and hopefully that can be turned into some podium finishes in the second half of the season.
“Mentally it’s not easy to have a big accident before the rally and to try to come back from that, but Taka bounced back really well and was getting stronger and stronger during the event.
“In that sense he did a great job.”
Katsuta himself is aware of the need to start tidying his driving.
“For sure, some stages I had more confidence to push in Kenya but still I was making mistakes which is not necessary and I was making a little bit of a mess and losing more time,” Katsuta told DirtFish.
“So this area I really need to improve.
“Anyway, we will try to get a good feeling of confidence before the Estonia test, and then Estonia going to be good decent one [in terms of] performance.”
