According to the Toyota team boss, Jari-Matti Latvalathe fact that the Japanese brand has taken over the title of manufacturer of the World Rally Championship in the latter part of the season it was a great moment and a great story for the category.
The Japanese brand managed to overcome a big 15-point disadvantage compared to Hyundai Motorsport during the last meeting of the seasonin Japan, culminating in an extraordinary showdown in the final stage.
Both manufacturers reached the Power Stage tied on points after Ott Tanakfrom Hyundai, has already crashed in dramatic circumstanceswhich he also offered to his teammate, Thierry Neuvillehis first driving title. However, Sébastien Ogier completed an impressive run for Toyota to win the 13.98 kilometer test on Lake Mikawako, while teammate Elfyn Evans (final winner of the rally) finished third and Takamoto Katsuta fifth, which was enough for them to win the championship by three points.
Despite winning eight rallies during the campaign, compared to Hyundai's five, Toyota's victory comes after a year of challenges and problems.which led Latvala to almost consider the team's title chances as lost after the Acropolis Rally last September.
“It's been an incredible story, and I don't think I've ever seen one like it, in terms of a close fight over the course of a season.“, said Latvala, whose brand has won every constructor's championship since 2021, at Motorsport.com.
“If you think about what happened this weekend and you follow the championship, I would say that It's the best story anyone can build, and to me it shows how great gatherings are and the drama that can happen.. We must continue to tell these stories. We fought in the last stage, until the last meters. It was probably the most difficult day of my career as a team manager, because it was very painful to follow,” he continued.
“I always felt like with every turn I saw, our drivers were going to go off the road. I was scared the whole time, but they did a good job. Until today we didn't think our chances were that great, but we wanted to fight until the end. When Tänak had the accident, things changed. This shows that you should never lose faith.”
“We won more rallies, but we had bad Sundays and it cost us dearly. We had three bad Sundays and Hyundai was clearly better on the last day, but now it happened to them. In general, I think as a team we were very strong throughout the year, but there were incidents and we paid the price for them,” he concluded.
