On August 23–24, Takumi Matsushita and Shotaro Goto, the third generation of TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRC Challenge Program drivers, competed in the Future SM-Ralli, their third race of the season. They both finished among the top six of their class and separated by just 1.4 seconds thanks to their steady pace.
Based in Lahti, the Future SM-Ralli is one of the season’s most popular events, featuring as a round of the FIA European Historic Championship as well as the Finnish national series. TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team Principal Jari-Matti Latvala competed in the historic element thrilling fans with his pace aboard his own Celica GT-4.
The aim for the two-day event, which finished in Lahti on Saturday evening, was for both drivers to find consistent pace aboard a pair of Renault Clio Rally4s. While the late summer weather delivered a predominantly dry event, grip on the three Friday stages was compromised slightly by the passing of the historic field.
Nonetheless, both drivers found a good and closely-matched pace from the beginning of the event. Matsushita closed out Friday with a Strong fifth quickest time in class to end the day narrowly ahead. Saturday offered twice the competitive distance, with two loops of the same three stages.
Having found a cornering technique which offered more speed and confidence on Friday night, Matsushita was able to exploit that across Saturday’s competition. He was faster through four of six stages as he backed up his third in class last time out at the HYAcenter Ralli in Tampere with fifth in Lahti against the deeper competition of the Finnish championship.
Revisions to his pace notes ahead of the event helped Goto to sixth in class. Both drivers were delighted with progress they showed through just their third event in the Program.
Quotes:
Shotaro Goto:
“I think this event has been the one where I have made the most progress this season. Last time in Tampere [on the HYAcenter Ralli] I didn’t feel like I was fast enough – not against the leaders in the class or against Takumi. This time felt much better. There are many reasons for that – the first is the work I did on my pace notes. We did the recce for Rally Finland and I talked a lot with Mikko [Hirvonen] about how my notes were working. We came up with some improvements and they really worked here. As well as that, I changed the car to give me less oversteer. In Tampere, it felt like the rear was snapping a little bit. This time I took more confidence from the car. Now I’m really looking forward to Italy, competing on asphalt will be something really different.”
Takumi Matsushita:
“Overall, I am very happy. The roads here were really fast, but there were also some very technical, slower corners – I was able to make really good progress with my driving. One change I made with my technique was to stop trying to brake so late into the corners; I found I was losing a lot of mid-corner speed after I was sliding a little bit at the entry. I made this change, and worked a little bit with the brake balance and this definitely has made me faster. The stages were really nice on this rally, but definitely the grip was tricky after the historic cars had gone through on Friday. The surface was not so nice, but Saturday was very good.”
Mikko Hirvonen (TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRC Challenge Program chief instructor):
“Both of the guys have done a very good rally here in Lahti. We’re really happy to see them at the finish without any problems or issues and they’ve taken a lot of experience and some good learning from some really challenging roads. The speed is very good, we calculate they are just over 0.6 seconds per slower per kilometre than the class leader – that’s very good progress. Now we look forward to the completely new challenge next month: we will have some asphalt testing in Finland and in Italy before the event.”