He ended up nearly two minutes behind the leaders. Katsuta had demonstrated his ability to reach the podium on tarmac at his home event in Japan two years ago. However, his tactics in Croatia might have been too cautious.
“It was a very difficult weekend. I was struggling a lot in the beginning, but then step by step, I came back to the form I had before. On Sunday, we got the extra points for Super Sunday and the Power Stage. It ended quite positively. But of course, personally, I’m not too happy because it could have been better if I had performed well from the beginning of the rally,” Katsuta told RallyJournal.com.
On Sunday, Katsuta was the fastest overall, securing seven championship points. Additionally, he earned two more points from the Power Stage.
“I’m pretty happy about Sunday. Finally, I did some work for the team. I just need to continue like this and push more right from the start of the rally. That’s the next step,” Katsuta reflected.
Katsuta acknowledged that it was more about his mindset than any issue with the car’s setup at the start of the event.
“I would say it’s all about my own mindset because I knew this rally was going to be very tricky and the weather forecast looked very bad this weekend. My strategy was to stay on the road, make no mistakes, just avoiding issues. But it was way too cautious,” Katsuta admitted.
“Then, at some point, everybody was pushing quite a lot. In the end, you start to lose confidence because you don’t know why you’re losing so much time.”
The next WRC event will be in Portugal in just over two weeks. Katsuta heads there from a more relaxed starting point, as he will be in Toyota’s fourth car, not having to worry about manufacturer championship points.
“Exactly. This is a good thing. I have no pressure, no stress about the team points. I can just focus on my own things and just do my best.”
