Juha Kankkunen is keen on spending time inside the new GR Yaris Rally2 with the view of helping Toyota to develop this car considering the fact that it will not be available by 2024.
The four-time World Rally Champion had the chance to drive the concept GR Yaris Rally2 car on one single stage on Saturday at Rally Japan and was surprised by the driveability of this car. In addition to that, Kankkunen had the chance to drive a hydrogen-powered Yaris at Ypres Rally Belgium, which shows that he is in very good terms with Toyota, and his desire to spend time testing this Yaris may come true.
"The car is not coming until Monte Carlo 2024, so there is a whole year of testing next year and the engineers and the guys, they want feedback from as many drivers as possible to get an idea if they are going in the right direction", Kankkunen said.
"OK I have been driving all of these cars anyway so I can tell my opinion what I think and what is the place you can improve the car a bit more, and concentrate for that and things.
"Especially the winter test.
"I would like, because in Finland we have the good places to do winter tests.
"To do some testing on the proper spiked tires and give them information about how is it working, this can be nice.
"I drove, last winter, in a Fiesta Rally2 on the ice in Lapland.
"I know how the Fiesta R5 goes, so I can tell straightaway how the Yaris is behaving there.
"If they need me to test a little bit more, I should like to test there.
"It has to be an easy car. Somebody jumps in like you and you have to trust the car 100% and it has to be very easy and simple to drive.
"If you need to fight from the first corner with the car, then you cannot ever get any results and it can be dangerous as well".
Source: DirtFish.com
Photo Credits: Toyota
Post a Comment