Rally Hokkaido was held in Obihiro. Last time a world championship event was driven over there, back in 2007. I drove in Obihiro in 2006 and 2007 but both times I went off the road.
This was my third time, only now the race was a Japanese championship event and my car was a Toyota Yaris Rally2.
Akio Toyoda had invited me to drive in Hokkaido as early as in January 2023. We knew that the race would be at the same time as Rally Greece. But the decision was made and kept and so I traveled to Japan and let someone else take care of the team principal’s job in Greece. Juho Hänninen came to Hokkaido with me and took the co-driver’s seat.
The Toyota Rally2 car was still in the stage of development because officially it would be introduced in the world championship series in 2024 but we wanted to find out the level of the development of the car.
Right away on the first stage in Rikubetsu we realized that the car had potential because I was the fastest on the stage by five seconds.
The car was very easy to drive, the engine had torque, long suspension travels gave good grip and the car felt powerful. When the car is good it is easy to get good results if the driver is good enough. And I was good enough being able to drive on the same level as I did in the Secto Rally Finland a month before.
I won the race by two minutes sixteen seconds. Norihiko Katsuta (Takamoto´s father) was second. Heikki Kovalainen was third.
The race gave us vital information on the performance of the car which made the Toyota team very happy. It will be interesting to see this car in the world championship series.
