At the start of August, Katsuta achieved an almost perfect result at Rally Finland, when the Japanese driver finished second on the fast gravel roads of Central Finland.
But, as has happened so many times before, a brilliant performance was now followed by a rally coloured by mistakes – and a dose of bad luck.
Katsuta’s rally was ruined already on Friday, when he suffered a puncture on the opening stage and later damaged his car on stage three after a heavy impact with a bank. In the end, Katsuta was only 16th overall. On the Power Stage, however, he still showed good pace and rounded off his rally with a single championship point.
“This is why I’m not happy, but I’m very happy. This event was very, very nice. Normally, if things are not going well, you don’t enjoy it so much anymore. But still, I really enjoyed this rally because it was so nice. The fans were nice as well,” Katsuta summed up.
“Unfortunately, we basically—sorry, I’m nearly swearing—I don’t know what to say. Messed up. So after that, it was so difficult. Like road cleaning on Saturday and everything didn’t go well. But yeah, we had the pace, so that’s why I’m very, very disappointed,” Katsuta continued.
Katsuta hit the brakes at the very last moment. A rude f-word was about to escape his lips, but he managed to pull it back just in time.
“I don’t know, because it’s not easy to describe. Friday was messed up, or Friday was destroyed, I don’t know,” Katsuta laughed.
Politically correct terms are probably the wiser choice. After all, fines have been handed out for bad language plenty of times before.
So far, Katsuta’s season has been very inconsistent. It has included brilliant results such as second places in Sweden and Finland, but on the other hand, there have also been three rallies with zero points.
