The team principal of Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT, Jari-Matti Latvala, admits that his team wants to have Takamoto Katsuta and Sami Pajari at the squad in 2025 as they want to educate young drivers.
Katsuta has been driving for Toyota since 2019 while the Japanese team promoted him at the main team since 2023 dropping the "New Generation Programme". He renewed his contract with the team for 2024 and was about to compete in all WRC rounds, but he decided to skip Rally Chile due to personal reasons. On the other hand, Sami Pajari made his WRC debut with the GR Yaris Rally1 at Rally Finland one month ago while he will have two more outings with the team in Chile and in Central Europe. Elfyn Evans and Kalle Rovanpera are set to continue with full-season programmes and Sebastien Ogier may have a partial campaign again. However, Toyota has the ability to bring five GR Yaris Rally1 cars next year and there is a possibility to have a satellite team for Katsuta and Pajari in order to gain more experience in World Rally Championship and to develop their skills. So far, only Thierry Neuville has been confirmed by Hyundai ahead of the new season which means that the WRC market is still very open and remains to see if we will see some changes to the grid.
"Let’s say that we are looking at this young driver program and we want to invest for the future", Latvala said.
"We want to educate young drivers.
"So, Sami fits very well for the profile.
"Also we have Taka, we want Taka to be able to improve and get, you know, more consistency because we know Taka has speed.
"There is no question about that.
"So, of course, our idea is to look the options to find something for both of them.
"At this point I can’t say anything more about it because negotiations are still open".
Source: DirtFish.com
Photo Credits: Toyota
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