Rally Sweden is the only pure winter event held on ice and snow in the FIA World Rally Championship, and is also one of the fastest rounds of the season, where special studded tyres bite into the surface to provide grip. Large snowbanks line the stages and can be leant on to carry more speed through corners, but they can often also catch drivers out.
For the Program’s second generation of drivers Hikaru Kogure and Yuki Yamamoto, this was their third successive appearance on the stages around Umeå, and their second in WRC2 driving the Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 car. The main goal was to build on that previous experience to show competitive pace while also adapting to the different characteristics of the new Hankook tyres being used in the WRC this year.
Kogure, co-driven by Topi Luhtinen, made a solid start to the rally and was just outside the top 10 in the class before he went into a snowbank in SS6 and got stuck, ending his Friday early. Yamamoto and co-driver James Fulton also got briefly stuck in a snowbank in SS3, losing around 50 seconds, and ended the day in 11th place in WRC2.
On Saturday, Yamamoto would lose more time in a snowbank in SS11, while Kogure returned to action under restart rules with a largely clean day. Both drivers had a clean and strong final leg on Sunday where they were inside the top 10 stage times on all three stages, with Yamamoto climbing up to finish ninth in the final WRC2 order.
For third-generation drivers Shotaro Goto and Takumi Matsushita this was their first ever WRC start, driving Renault Clio Rally3 cars in the WRC3 class. With this being the longest rally of their careers so far, the main aim was to gain experience and both drivers rose well to the challenge, getting cleanly through the event’s longest day on Friday with Goto and co-driver Jussi Lindberg fourth in class and Matsushita and co-driver Pekka Kelander just 5.5 seconds behind in fifth.
Goto moved up into the podium places on Saturday morning before losing some time in the afternoon in impacts with snowbanks, and he would ultimately be forced to retire out of fourth place on the penultimate stage on Sunday due to a mechanical issue. Matsushita set two second-fastest times on Saturday morning and finished the rally fourth out of 19 starters in the class.
Quotes:
Juho Hänninen (TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRC Challenge Program instructor):
“With Hikaru and Yuki it has been quite an OK weekend overall. Hikaru’s off on Friday ended his hopes for the overall result and Yuki had some smaller moments that cost some time, but most of the stages were good for them. Still we need to work to improve the consistency so that they are able to get through rallies cleanly with good pace. The tyres were also new for them, as they were for most of the drivers, and this was something they were trying to adapt to through the whole rally. For Shotaro and Takumi it was a positive first experience in WRC. Shotaro was unfortunate with the technical issue on Sunday but he didn’t miss so many kilometres, and gaining the mileage is the most important thing for them. At the same time they both did pretty well considering their lack of experience, with no mistakes and quite consistent speed, so this is promising for the future.”
Hikaru Kogure:
“The rally started OK and on Friday afternoon I tried to push more, but there was one corner that was tighter than I expected and we had too much speed and hit the snowbank quite hard. When we restarted on Saturday I struggled with the rhythm at first, but over the rest of the rally it was getting better and better and the times were coming as well. Comparing my performance to last year I can definitely see some improvement, but I am still struggling to adapt my driving to the new tyre so this is something I need to analyse for the future.”
Yuki Yamamoto:
“It was not the easiest weekend but it was really positive to finish the rally and to cover all of the kilometres. The conditions on the stages were trickier than I expected after the recce, when they seemed almost perfect. During the rally it was changing a lot, but this was good learning especially with the new tyres. I didn’t have the best start to the weekend with some moments with the snowbanks, but for the final day we made some setup changes to try and understand the tyres more and it went well. I could feel more confidence in the car and was closer to the pace, so this was nice to see.”
Shotaro Goto:
“Overall this has been a surprisingly good rally for me. The pace was much better than on the Arctic Rally and I saw a huge improvement on both the pacenote side and in my driving. It was not easy to adapt to the tyres at the start of the rally, partly because I had an issue with the car on shakedown so didn’t get to try them much, and on the first stage I locked the brakes and stalled the engine. But after that I had some really good pace. On Saturday afternoon I tried to push a bit more and had some moments but luckily we could continue. Unfortunately the problem on Sunday meant we couldn’t finish, but overall I’m really happy with my rally.”
Takumi Matsushita:
“I think this has been a great first WRC event for me and I’m really happy to have had the opportunity to compete on this event. I feel I was able to keep a consistent pace from the first stage to the last stage. Of course, the Hankook tyre was different but my feeling in the car was quite good compared to the Arctic Rally. I especially enjoyed the Umeå Sprint stages in the evenings where I felt that I could push a bit more and see that the pace was OK. I also found a lot of things to improve in my driving and that is a positive thing too for the future.”
Results (WRC2 class):
1 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) 2h42m02.3s
2 Roope Korhonen/Anssi Viinikka (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +42.5s
3 Mikko Heikkilä/Kristian Temonen (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +1m08.3s
4 Lauri Joona/Samu Vaaleri (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +1m43.9s
5 Isak Reiersen/Stefan Gustavsson (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +3m03.4s
6 Fabrizio Zaldivar/Marcelo Der Ohannesian (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +3m35.3s ...
9 Yuki Yamamoto/James Fulton (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +7m17.3s ...
17 Hikaru Kogure/Topi Luhtinen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +34m38.0s ...
Results (WRC3 class):
1 Taylor Gill/Daniel Brkic (Ford Fiesta Rally3) 2h51m17.7s
2 Matteo Fontana/Alessandro Arnaboldi (Ford Fiesta Rally3) +1m13.1s
3 Ali Türkkan/Oytun Albayrak (Ford Fiesta Rally3) +1m31.1s
4 Takumi Matsushita/Pekka Kelander (Renault Clio Rally3) +1m50.0s
5 Kerem Kazaz/Corentin Silvestre (Ford Fiesta Rally3) +2m48.3s
6 Adam Grahn/Maja Bengstsson (Ford Fiesta Rally3) +6m50.2s
Retired Shotaro Goto/Jussi Lindberg (Renault Clio Rally3)
What’s next?
The winter rally season will conclude for Kogure, Yamamoto, Goto and Matsushita next month when they all compete in the Savonlinna Ralli, a round of the Finnish Rally Championship, on March 7-8. Co-driver Tomiya Maekawa will also be in action on the event alongside Jarkko Nikara in the Rally4 class.
