TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Ready to Attack the Welsh Forests
October 20 2017 - 4:14AM
JCN Newswire (English)
The TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team takes on one of the
most famous rounds of the FIA World Rally Championship with Rally
GB from October 26-29. Drivers Jari-Matti Latvala, Juho Hanninen
and Esapekka Lappi will head into the forests of Wales for the
penultimate round of the season, looking to add to the strong
potential displayed by the Yaris WRC during its debut campaign.
http://www.acnnewswire.com/topimg/Low_Toyota102017Car11.jpg
Car 11 (Juho Hanninen, Kaj Lindstrom)
Rally GB takes place over forest tracks through mid and north
Wales. In dry conditions these stages can be driven at fairly high
speeds, but in the Welsh autumn the pace is tempered by mud, which
can make the surfaces treacherously slippery. Fog and even ice can
add to the challenge, particularly early in the morning or late in
the evening.
The rally begins on Thursday night with a new spectator stage at
the Tir Prince trotting track on the north Welsh coast, east of the
service park in Deeside. Friday consists of the classic Myherin,
Sweet Lamb and Hafren stages, run twice with only a tyre fitting
zone in between the two loops. A marathon Saturday features nine
stages and ends in darkness. Five more stages conclude the action
on Sunday, ending with the Brenig Power Stage.
Quotes:
Tommi Makinen (Team Principal)
"In 2003 I was fighting for the podium with Colin McRae on my last
world championship rally, so personally I have really nice memories
of Rally GB. It's the sort of place where you need a lot of
confidence with the car, as often there is actually more grip than
there appears to be. Then you have the fog and the rain, which is a
big challenge. After Spain, we identified some things that we could
do a bit differently, so it will be interesting to see the effect
of these changes now. Conditions in our pre-event test were warmer
than usual, but that should not affect us too much: in the end it
is a question of dialling the car into the nature of the roads, and
that doesn't really change. I think we're well-prepared."
Jari-Matti Latvala (Driver car 10)
"Britain is a bit like my second home as it's where I started my
career and it was also my first world championship rally. There are
some fantastic stages like Myherin and Dyfnant, which I'm looking
forward to going back to. We obviously had a few technical issues
in some of the recent rallies, but I feel confident that the team
has got completely on top of those now and I just want to have two
strong events to finish this incredible season. The first few
rallies were challenging but maybe less demanding on the car than
these events now at the end of the year, so we are learning more
all the time as it is still only our first season as a team."
Juho Hanninen (Driver car 11)
"I'm happy with what we managed to do in Spain, so we go into Rally
GB with a lot of confidence. This will be my last rally of the
year, so most of all I just want to enjoy it. I've not actually
competed there since 2014, but luckily most of the stages are still
quite the same. Even though I don't have a huge amount of
experience in Wales I've always liked it, so I want to make sure
that this rally is a nice one for us. We don't have a particular
plan: we just want to take it stage by stage and build on our pace.
It's a strategy that has worked well before."
Esapekka Lappi (Driver car 12)
"Our pre-event test was good but it was very strange weather: I
brought my winter jacket and my hat, but when I stepped out of the
hotel it was 22 degrees! Still, I think what we worked on can still
be useful if it's wet and muddy, which is normally what happens on
Rally GB. I just hope that there's not too much fog, as that can be
really difficult. We changed some suspension settings and there are
a few other lessons that we learned from Spain that I was able to
improve on, so we made a lot of progress during the test. Normally
I have a good feeling with Rally GB, so now I'm looking forward to
getting out on the stages and hopefully we can have a good result
at the end."
About Toyota
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Source: Toyota
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