Matsushita and Goto deliver pace and progress in Lahti

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.”

What’s next?

Both Matsushita and Goto will move onto asphalt for their next outing at the Rally 1000 Miglia. The September 13/14 event runs to the west of Lake Garda in northern Italy and includes a wide variety of challenging asphalt stages. They will be joined in Brescia by second-generation TGR WRC Challenge Program driver Yuki Yamamoto, who will contest the event in a Toyota GR Yaris Rally2.