The Japanese Toyota driver has so far suffered throughout his career from being unable to deliver top results on a consistent basis.
In one rally he may have been fighting seriously for victory, while in the next event everything imaginable may have gone wrong.
This is a trend Katsuta now wants to break next season. He wants to be a regular on the podium and to fight for the world championship in the future.
So far in his career, Katsuta has achieved seven podium finishes, but that first victory is still missing.
“For me, next year [2026] is going to be kind of a one step forward year. This is my target, which is like trying to focus on more consistently fighting for the podium – like minimum top five of course, but everybody fighting for the podium is fighting for the championship points also,” Katsuta told DirtFish.
“If I can do it that, then it will be quite high championship points, so a step forward, and towards the ’27, if I can, [I want] to fight for the championship. Of course it’s never easy I know, it’s going to be a very, very tough challenge for sure, but this is my target and I just try my best to get there,” Katsuta continued.
Katsuta has never lacked the desire to win. Last season, the Japanese driver desperately wanted to claim the first WRC victory of his career on home soil in Japan, but an overly aggressive attempt backfired. Katsuta broke his car and that was the end of it.
“I was too much focusing to try to get a win,” Katsuta now admitted.
“If I accept it, OK, now I go for podium, for sure 100% I stay there [on the podium],” he pointed out.
However, one always drives for victory and strives for it. The key is finding the balance between knowing when to go flat out and when it is time to back off.
“I’m not saying that I made a mistake or decision or anything because I wanted to win, but this kind of moment maybe a bit like what Séb and Elfyn can do is they are always fighting on top, top yes, but they can push but not too crazy every single stage – more like finding ‘OK this stage I was going with everybody, the next one maybe I push’ and it becomes more like controlling,” Katsuta reflected.
“But what I did this time was ‘Now I need to push every stage or something like this’ and then small, small mistakes cost a lot. So I just need to keep pushing of course but finding the right timing to not do this kind of small mistake again,” the Japanese driver reasoned.
