Takamoto Katsuta’s hopes of a maiden World Rally Championship win have been dashed by a crash on SS11 of Rally Japan, which broke the power steering on his Toyota GR Yaris Rally1.
Coming into a section marked out by plastic barriers, Katsuta oversteered on entry to the ‘arena’ section of Mt. Kasagi 2, running wide into said barriers.
He then smashed through the barriers again to return to the stage’s intended route, damaging the front-right corner of his car which in turn led to his power steering failing a few corners later.
A devastated Katsuta remained silent at the stop line; his mistake meant he fell from third place and 5.2s off the rally lead to seventh, 4m14s from the podium places.
Katsuta and co-driver Aaron Johnston have stopped twice on the road section to repair the damage
When asked what happened by DirtFish on the following road section, Katsuta replied: “I don’t know. A stupid mistake.”
Another stage win for Elfyn Evans reduced the gap to rally leader Sébastien Ogier to a slim 1.4s; Adrien Fourmaux has now taken third place with Katsuta’s error, 17.7s off the top spot.
Sami Pajari is exactly half a minute off the lead in fourth, with Ott Tänak now rounding out the top five.
Kalle Rovanperä has already gained another points-paying position, taking ninth overall from Alejandro Cachón and now bearing down on WRC2 leader Oliver Solberg.
