Johnston’s hoping for Swedish success

AARON Johnston and Takamoto Katsuta will go into the second round of the World Rally Championship this coming weekend with quiet confidence.

Yes, their Rallye Monte Carlo challenge didn’t go quite as they had hoped after they lost five minutes when they got beached on a mound of snow on the Friday, but they recovered well and salvaged a decent points haul from the event, which takes them into one of their favourite events, Rally Sweden where they showed exceptional pace last year before disaster struck.

Despite that set-back, they are keen to show their early speed in 2023 is something they can replicate for a full weekend this time around.

“After rolling on the Friday afternoon when we were fighting for the lead of the rally, it was disappointing to come away with not a great reward when we had the pace to fight for at least a podium but hopefully we can put that right this year and give it a proper go to achieve a positive result,” Fintona co-driver Johnston said.

In Sweden this weekend, Johnston and Katsuta will face the additional challenge of two-time World champion, Kalle Rovanpera, who will make his first start of the season for their Toyota Gazoo Racing team, and their former colleague, Esapekka Lappi, who will do likewise for Hyundai.

Regardless, with the event now taking place in the far north of the country, Johnston believes the conditions should be perfect, allowing them to enjoy the event thoroughly.

“In the likes of Rovaniemi [Finland, where Toyota test] where the Arctic Rally was, the conditions are always superb because it’s so far north. But now Sweden’s has moved so far north over the last two years, it has definitely improved the conditions there so hopefully we face the proper winter conditions, that there won’t be any gravel or pollution showing through from under the ice,” observed the 29-year-old

“It’s still a surface that I enjoy. It’s still relatively new to me compared to gravel or tarmac. I’ve done maybe 12 or 14 winter events now so I do have some pretty good experience on the surface considering we only do one event per year in the World Championship. It’s always fun to go flat out between the snowbanks on a surface that you can very nearly not stand up on.

“We were seventh in Monte in the classification but we took away sixth placed points because of this new points system, so it worked out for us that we could salvage something from the Sunday after getting stuck on the Friday. We will start fifth on the road in Umea, which is a pretty good position.

“We have Kalle returning and EP [Lappi] both starting behind us because neither of them were in Monte, so there will be a big fight.”