How Katsuta bounced back stronger after WRC benching

The Japanese driver was back to his best on his World Rally Championship return at the Central European Rally

Takamoto Katsuta has explained why he was able to make a strong World Rally Championship comeback at the Central European Rally after being benched.   

The Japanese driver rejoined the Toyota squad for the penultimate round of the season last weekend following a shock decision by the team to bench its full-time driver for last month’s trip to South America.

The decision from the team came after the Acropolis Rally which marked a sixth consecutive result outside of the top five for Katsuta.

The 31-year-old says missing Chile was one of his toughest career moments but he was quickly able to put that behind him at the Central European Rally with a fine run to fourth, including two stage wins.

The five-time WRC podium finisher marked an impressive comeback under pressure by scoring the maximum 12 Super Sunday points for topping the Sunday classification and winning the Power Stage. The points haul could prove crucial for Toyota in its fight with Hyundai for the manufacturers’ title. 

Katsuta believes he wouldn’t have been able to achieve this if it wasn’t for the support from within the team and all the people around him. 

One of the areas Katusta has worked on to fine tune his driving is his pacenotes, by removing unnecessary extra detail that can be harder to process at speed.

“It was big, big pressure before this rally. It was such a difficult moment I’ve had in the last few months and maybe the start of the season, and of course last month was the toughest moment," he said.

“But I had really strong support from the team and all the people around me. This is one of the reasons I was able to come back stronger. 

"There is massive support from my engineers and my team-mates like Kalle [Rovanpera], Seb [Ogier] and Elfyn [Evans] calling me and messaging me, there has been big support.

“Of course it is easy to say afterwards. It is hard to say [if the decision to miss Chile was correct] as it was really tough moment. I had time to think a lot and I was able to concentrate and do the job.”

Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala labelled Katsuta’s Central European Rally display “superb” as his Sunday points haul helped Toyota’s manufacturers’ title bid after Sebastien Ogier crashed out of the victory battle.

“I have to say massive thanks to Taka. He had an excellent performance and also a very good performance from Elfyn [Evans, who finished third] they both saved us in this situation and we are still in the game for the manufacturers’ championship,” Latvala told Autosport. 

“Taka has been really superb and on Thursday he had quite bit of pressure and was quite nervous coming back to the car after a one-month break. 

“You could see he was a little bit cautious, then he was lifting up the speed and then he did a fastest time, but when it was tricky he took it easy. 

“He was growing and this is exactly the way we want him to take because we know his speed but the problem before is Taka has been trying to lift up the speed too quickly and now he was progressively building that. It was starting to come naturally."