Takamoto Katsuta has explained the cause of his exit from the opening stage of Rally Chile.
The Toyota driver failed to make it more than four miles into Friday’s leg when he ran wide, clipped a bank and got his GR Yaris Rally1 stuck.
“Obviously, there has been quite a rain overnight, so the stages are quite muddy in places and changing a lot of grip and surface and all the gravel materials are different, so changing a lot the grip level,” Katsuta said.
“Unfortunately one of the corners, kind of downhill corner, there was quite muddy corner, just not able to slow down enough. Actually speed was not very, very high but we just went wide on the outside and then hit the bank and unfortunately we were stuck after.
“So yeah, the car has not really much damage but basically it was very steep ditch and not able to back on the road because of basically we were beached.
“So yeah, very tough, very unfortunate things happening now and facing the very difficult moment so it’s not easy, but yeah. Try to focus and come back stronger.”
Katsuta crashed twice at Rally del Paraguay (on Friday and on Sunday), making this the third retirement from four legs of World Rally Championship rallying.
He will however restart Rally Chile on Saturday.
“Yeah of course, it’s not an easy situation but we try our best to come back and get the feeling and good rhythm,” he said. “Just need to learn and get stronger from this.”
