Despite its world champion driver exiting on his roof, Toyota could reflect on a job well done on Rally Finland.
Elfyn Evans took his second win of the season, and a second career victory on one of the World Rally Championship’s most prestigious events, in comprehensive fashion. His 39.1-second victory was Rally Finland’s biggest winning margin in five years and the second biggest since 2005.
Significantly, Evans was joined on the podium by Takamoto Katsuta, securing a 1-3 for Toyota despite Kalle Rovanperä’s retirement. It was only the third WRC podium of Katsuta’s career, his first in Europe, and by far his best result when nominated to score manufacturers’ points for the team.
OK, only five Rally1 cars made the finish without recourse to super-rally restart regulations. But this was no gimme for Katsuta. He worked hard to fend off the challenge of home driver Teemu Suninen, setting three fastest stage times and only being outside the top three on eight of the 22 tests.
Evans was quick to acknowledge the impressive drive from his team-mate at a time when Katsuta’s confidence was low. A lackluster run to seventh in Estonia followed a series of disappointing performances and Katsuta himself had described his season as “very bad”, admitting he needed to do better.
“It was a performance, that’s the thing,” Evans emphasized. “I know we’ve had a lot of attrition in this rally but still his performance on Friday was really special, like he won the first proper stage we went to.
“And to pick himself up from what’s been a difficult string of rallies, including in Estonia, and come here, has been really, really impressive and I’m really happy for him to see him on the podium.”
This was the fourth occasion that Katsuta had been nominated by Toyota for manufacturers’ points – a role he is sharing with Sébastien Ogier this year. But, barring two points on the Portugal powerstage, it was the first time he had contributed to the team’s score.
While Ogier returns to the fold for next month’s Acropolis Rally, Katsuta has justified Toyota’s faith in him for future events.
“I’m very happy to be on the podium at Rally Finland, my second home rally,” Katsuta concluded.
“It’s a really big thing for me and the team and also for Akio-san. He was giving me extra energy and motivation which was helping in the really intense battle that we had with Teemu. He was doing a really good job so it was not so easy, but we managed to make some gap on Saturday evening when the conditions were tricky, and this made the final day a bit less stressful.
“After Rally Estonia we worked really hard together with the team’s engineers to analyze where I could improve and this was why I could perform well already from Friday morning.
“I must also say thanks to Kalle [Rovanperä] who was giving me advice during our tests for driving these Finnish roads.”
