WRC Japan: Stable Elfyn Evans maintains lead on day 3, Takamoto Katsuta rises to 6th – RALLYPLUS.NET Rally Plus

The 13th round of the 2023 WRC season, Rally Japan (Tarmac), was held on November 18th (Saturday) on the 3rd day of 8 SS, with Toyota’s Elfyn Evans maintaining the lead. Toyota dominates the top three spots, with Sébastien Ogier in second place overall with a difference of 1 minute 15.0 seconds, and Kalle Rovanpera in third place overall with a difference of 1 minute 40.6 seconds. Takamoto Katsuta, driving the fourth Toyota GR Yaris Rally 1, set four best times and rose to 6th place overall.

The third day of the rally was 84.68km long and covered 8 SS in Toyota City, Okazaki City, and Shinshiro City in Aichi Prefecture. In the morning, we ran “Nukata Forest (20.32km)” and “Lake Mikawako (14.78km),” and ran the “Okazaki City SSS (2.84km)” established in Okazaki Central Park twice. In between the tire fitting zone in Okazaki, the team will repeat Nukata Forest and Lake Mikawako, and will drive once each at Shinshiro City (6.70km) and TOYOTA Stadium SSS (2.10km).

At the end of the second day, the top three cars were dominated by Toyota, with Ogier in second place, 1 minute 49.9 seconds behind Evans in the lead, and Rovanpera in third place, 2 minutes 6.6 seconds behind. Evans, who already has an advantage that could be called a safety lead, says cautiously, “We’ve been fighting well so far, but there’s still a long rally ahead.” Thierry Neuville of Hyundai, who was forced to retire on the day before, repaired his machine and restarted. Both Dani Sordo (Hyunde) and Adrien Fourmaux (M-Sport Ford) had extensive damage to their machines and decided not to run again.

The sky was blue at Toyota Stadium’s service park, a change from the rain the day before, but the area where the stage was set up is mountainous and thick with trees, and there were occasional periods of rain. Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota) and Ott Tänak (M-Sport Ford) decided that the road would be dry, so they ran five soft tires. The rest of the crew left the service on a combination of soft and wet tires.

Hyundai Motorsport GmbH

SS9 ran the longest of the day at 20.32km. Neuville, who started first, entered the track, but the safety car that had been running ahead of him stopped on the stage. As a result, a red flag was raised and Neuville, Katsuta, Tänak and Esapekka Lappi (Hyunde) were given national time. Ogier, who was in second place overall, had the best SS on this stage, 3.1 seconds behind the leader Evans. Rovanperä set the third fastest time on the SS, with a difference of 14.4 seconds.

SS10 started about 15 minutes late due to trouble in the previous stage, and Katsuta set the best time, 1.1 seconds behind Neuville. He narrowed the gap to Tänak, who was running 8th, to 18.8 seconds. “My goal is to catch up with EP (Lappi). I don’t know if it’s possible, but I’ll push as much as I can,” said Katsuta, keeping his eyes on Lappi, who was running about a minute ahead of him, within range. On this stage, Lappi passed WRC2’s Andreas Mikkelsen (Skoda) and Grégoire Munster (Ford) to move up to fourth overall.

After regrouping, the players took on a special course at Okazaki Central General Park, where a large number of spectators had gathered. Immediately after the start, they performed a donut turn while billowing white smoke, and ran through the stage set up in the park with cheers from the fans behind them. In SS11, which was the first run, Evans was the best, 0.2 seconds behind Tänak. The 1st rally group continued on to the second lap, SS12, where Evans also set the fastest time in a row. On SS11, Tänak overtook Nikolai Guriazin (Skoda) and moved up to 6th place overall.

M-SPORT

Instead of returning to service, the crew replaced the tires and performed some simple maintenance at the tire fitting zone at Okazaki Central General Park. Tänak and Neuville chose only soft tires for the afternoon section, while the rest of the crew headed to the stage on a combination of hard and soft tires.

SS13 is a repeat of the morning’s 2nd SS, and although the sun has come in and the track is mostly dry, the shaded areas are still slippery and there is some mud from the in-cut. Although Katsuta was unable to attack in the morning due to a red flag, he was now 2.8 seconds behind Ogier and 4.2 seconds behind Tänak. Tänak overtook Mikkelsen to take fifth place overall, while Katsuta overtook Münster and Griazin to move into seventh place overall.

On SS14, rain mixed with snow started to fall, but conditions were mostly dry. Once again, Katsuta achieved the best time in a row with a 0.8 second difference over Neuville. Katsuta has overtaken Mikkelsen and moved up to 6th place overall. Next up is SS15 “Shinshiro City” which will only be run once. Katsuta also won the short stage, which consisted mainly of high-speed corners, and set the fastest time for the third time in a row, following the previous day.

The long day ended with the Super SS at Toyota Stadium. Advance tickets for non-reserved seats were sold out, and a much larger number of fans filled the stands than the previous day, and Lappi won SS16 to great cheers, following SS8 the day before. Tänak was 2nd on the SS with a 1.5 second difference, Neuville was 3rd on the SS with a 2.1 second difference, and Katsuta was 3rd on the SS with a 2.6 second difference.

Toyota

Evans, who avoided risks and set a steady pace, maintained the lead with a rock-solid performance. He was over a minute ahead of Ogier, who was in second place overall, and was set to take on the final day with a big advantage. Rovanpera finished third overall, leaving Toyota with a monopoly on the top three. Lappi is 4th overall and Tänak is 5th overall. Katsuta, who was 6th overall, was able to shorten the gap between him and Tänak, which was approximately 25 seconds at the start of the day, to 14.9 seconds. Even though it was the last day, there was still a distance of 84.08km left, and Katsuta was not giving up on further improving his position, saying, “I’ll push as hard as I can tomorrow as well.”

The fourth day of competition consisted of 6 SS from SS17 to SS22, with a SS distance of 84.08km. The opening SS17 will start at 7:05 on November 19th.

WRC Rally Japan provisional results after SS17
1. E. Evans (Toyota GR Yaris Rally 1) 2:28:20.8
2. S. Ogier (Toyota GR Yaris Rally 1) +1:15.0
3. K. Rovanpera (Toyota GR Yaris Rally 1) +1:40.6
4. E. Lappi (Hyundai i20N Rally 1) +3:09.3
5. O. Tänak (Ford Puma Hybrid Rally 1) +3:35.3
6. Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota GR Yaris Rally 1) +3:50.2
7. A. Mikkelsen (Skoda Fabia RS Rally 2) +5:11.3
8. G. Munster (Ford Fiesta Rally 2) +5:19.6
9. N. Griazin (Skoda Fabia RS Rally 2) +5:54.6
10. K. Kaetanovic (Skoda Fabia RS Rally 2) +12:51.6