Katsuta went off the road more than once: on the opening Asuke stage he understeered wide on a right hander and had to grab the handbrake to force rotation, dipping the left-rear wheel into a drainage ditch and picking up a puncture. On the loop-ending Inabu/Shitara stage he then overshot a slow right-hander and went off into grass, losing several seconds.
In both cases Katsuta said insufficient information on conditions from his route note crew was to blame: “Like I said same as stage one, obviously there was damp but no information in the notes. How is it possible? How can I drive like this?”
Adrien Fourmaux suffered a spin at a hairpin on Isegami’s Tunnel – though it was not the main reason he ended up 54.4s off the pace in the rally’s first three stages.
“I have no grip and no balance in the car,” said Fourmaux. “I had a dry setup and I expected it to dry a bit more, rain a bit less. It’s a very bad start for us but it’s a long rally but let’s see. But normally you will never catch those seconds per stage. As always on tarmac…”
Hayden Paddon is eighth, 22.7s behind Fourmaux; he also had an overshoot moment at a left junction on the Isegami’s Tunnel test.
WRC2 leader Nikolay Gryazin splits the M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1s, with Jon Armstrong ninth and Josh McErlean 11th. Both drivers struggled with their tire choice, having gone mostly for hard compound tires as the rest of the Rally1 field – Paddon aside – leaned more heavily on softs.
Alejandro Cachón was fastest on the first and third stages in WRC2 and is 1.7s behind class leader Gryazin.