The season-ending Rally Japan developed into a difficult event for the Škoda crews. Ahead Japan Racing Team’s Hiroki Arai and co-driver Shunsuke Matsuo made the best of the demanding road conditions and reached the finish third in WRC2 – their best ever FIA World Rally Championship result.
While many competitors were caught out by the slippery stages on the tarmac roads of Honshū Island, Hiroki Arai managed to keep his Škoda Fabia Rally2 out of trouble. The reigning Japanese champion and his co-driver, Shunsuke Matsuo, set the fastest WRC2 time on two stages and maintained a top-3 position throughout the event. Only some rear differential issues during the final leg caused headaches. But the fan favourites held on to finish third in WRC2.
Toksport WRT’s Gus Greensmith and co-driver Jonas Andersson were hit by bad luck already on Friday morning (SS3). “In a slippery corner I lost the rear of the car under braking and it hit a banking,“ Greensmith explained a front right puncture on the Škoda Fabia RS Rally2. The British-Swedish duo lost one and a half minutes, falling back to seventh position in WRC2. With a string of fast stage times, they made up a couple of positions over the next two days and finished fourth in WRC2.
Fifth WRC2 position went to Kajetan Kajetanowicz/Maciej Szczepaniak. When the exhaust of their Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 was squashed as the result of a spin during the Friday leg, the Polish pairing lost engine power. But they refused to give up and brought their car to the Team RaceSeven service crew, who fixed the problem. Kajetanowicz/Szczepaniak were classified fourth in the WRC2 Challenger classification, securing “Kajto” third position in the overall rankings of this category.
Daniel Chwist/Kamil Heller from Poland and local crew Osamu Fukunaga/Misako Saida rounded up the five Škoda crews finishing inside the WRC2 top 10.
As usual sharing a Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 run by team Toksport WRT, Josh McErlean/James Fulton were not entered into WRC2 and competed for category RC2 silverware only. The Motorsport Ireland-backed pairing also went out of luck. They started into the second leg third of the category, but had to park their Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 in Saturday’s first stage. “We hit a tree stump in a cut. My mistake going in that inch too far,“ McErlean described. Restarting after repairs, the Irish duo eventually finished 14th in RC2.
With the 2024 season over after 13 rallies, six Škoda drivers are classified inside the top 10 of the WRC2 overall standings. Highest placed is Oliver Solberg of team Toksport WRT in runner-up position. Together with British co-driver Elliott Edmondson, the 23-year-old from Sweden won three events (Sweden, Latvia, Finland). Having already completed his allocated limit of seven WRC2 rounds, Solberg had to watch Rally Japan from the sidelines.
With the fifth place from Rally Japan, Team RaceSeven’s Kajetan Kajetanowicz from Poland also secured fifth in the WRC2 year-end rankings followed by Finnish driver Lauri Joona of team TGS Worldwide. Having won WRC2 at the Safari Rally Kenya, Englishman Gus Greensmith ended up seventh overall.
Rallye Monte-Carlo kicks off the next FIA World Rally Championship season from 23 to 26 January 2025.
WRC2 FORUM8 Rally Japan Overall Results
01: N. Gryazin/K. Aleksandrov (Citroën C3 Rally2) – 3h 33m 45.3s
02: S. Pajari/E. Mälkönen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) + 1m 46.5s
03: H. Arai/S. Matsuo (Škoda Fabia Rally2) + 3m 20.0s
04: G. Greensmith/J. Andersson (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) + 4m 11.5s
05: K. Kajetanowicz/M. Szczepaniak (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) + 6m 46.6s
06: H Kogure/T. Luthinen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) + 8m 48.7s
07: N. Katsuta/Y. Kimura (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) + 11m 23.5s
08: F. Nutahara/S. Azuma (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) + 15m 17.2s
09: D. Chwist/K. Heller (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) + 17m 17.7s
10: O. Fukunaga/M. Saida (Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo) + 18m 49.6s
WRC2 Final Championship Standings: Drivers
01: Sami Pajari (FIN) – 126 points
02: Oliver Solberg (SWE) – 123 points
03: Nikolay Gryazin (BGR) – 116 points
04: Yohan Rossel (FRA) – 111 points
05: Kajetan Kajetanowicz (POL) – 69 points
06: Lauri Joona (FIN) – 58 points
07: Gus Greensmith (GBR) – 54 points
08: Jan Solans (ESP) – 54 points
09: Josh McErlean (IRL) – 50 points
10: Robert Virves (EST) – 45 points