Takamoto Katsuta explains what led him to crash in Stage 5 at Rally Sweden and why he had to retire on the next stage after his roll.
Rally Sweden is the first event of Katsuta as a nominated driver of Toyota and managed to claim his first win today. In Stage 5, he hit a snowbank after a corner resulting in rolling his Yaris and eventually damaging it heavily. From this incident, the radiator was exposed to the snow roads due to lack of the front bumper while the rear roof spoiler and the side left window were missing. As he said to DirtFish, there is also a chassis damage to his Yaris, therefore the Toyota mechanics will decide if he will be able or not to restart on Saturday under the regulations of Rally2.
"Basically, already before this corner there is a lot of snow and some really deep ruts", Katsuta said.
"I braked a bit but the car didn’t stop because of really deep ruts, it’s like rails.
"Then somehow I lost the line a bit, was overspeeding and I tried to manage it to make a big, big angle to use the snowbank but obviously it was way too fast.
"We fixed it on the road section and it was quite OK but obviously we had a lot of damage and somehow we got another damage on the road section because a lot of the carbon parts and things are along the radiators.
"Then finally we got another damage on the engine side and then we had to stop.
"We have also other damage on the chassis side.
"The rollcage looks OK but I just follow what the team decides and I’m really sorry for the team".
Source: DirtFish.com
Photo Credits: Toyota
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