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FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship Round 4: Rally Hokkaido

CUSCO RACING WORLD RALLY TEAM: Event Report

FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship Round 4: Rally Hokkaido
Again Yanagi and Dean made 2-3 finish for CUSCO RACING!
The round 4 of FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship(APRC), “Rally Hokkaido”
was held from 11-13 July, around Obihiro, Hokkaido Japan.


This year’s Rally Hokkaido showed some change with its service park to
move to Kita-Aikoku where previously used as WRC event due to base for
World championship event would move to Sapporo, capital of Hokkaido. However
rally route is still similar from last year which always tricky and difficult
stages with narrow and lush vegetation. Also domestic forecast had been
estimated unstable weather during the weekend which gave us expectation
of some drama on the event.


Again Cusco racing entered three cars to this event. Hiroshi Yanagisawa
is looking up not only main series but also Asia cup ? subordinately series
of APRC which start from this event. Dean Herridge who crowned first ever
Pacific cup extended his plan to compete from the team for team’s home
country event, Japan. With no pressure at all, he would be accepted to
maximum push. Same as Yanagisawa, Yuya Sumiyama nominated Asia cup and
would start full learning of competition in APRC from this event.

 

 

 

Day 1’ route was set around Rikubetsu area ,over 100km drive from Obihiro.Apart from short stage in Off-road circuit, series of over 20km stages consisted for one section which was big challenge for drivers. But the accident happened just on SS2. Sumiyama hit rear tyre to three. He continued rest of 16km and finished the stage. However, actually his machine had serious damage with broken the suspension from the root and unable to continue. Unfortunately he withdrew from the day and looked for re-starting day2.



Meanwhile, Yanagisawa and Herridge finished morning section in APRC 2nd and 4th respectively. Their machine got maintenance at service park in Kita-aikoku and was sent to afternoon section. However, from this point, the sky started to get worse as forecast expected. When SS6 started, route area faced heavy rain and repeated stages which were rutted deeply by morning competition flooded immediately. Championship leader Cody Clocker who had
to run the 30km stage in those bad conditions lost almost three minutes.
Third runner Herridge also lost 1 minute and 26seconds, Yanagisawa who was fifth on stage still lost 1 minute and 10 seconds too. It was not the situation to have proper competition and rest of two stages of the day were cancelled. Eventually the driver who finished in top this day was Yanagisawa. Herrige also finished the day consistently and positioned in 4th.

However, to finish first day in top meant to have some disadvantage. The
starting order for day 2 would be regarded by the result of previous day,
so Yanagisawa has to run stages in first and sweep gravels on surface.
Also the gap between APRC rival who was on target to win, MRF tyre driver
Katsu Taguchi was 21 seconds. Now close battle between Yanagisawa and Taguchi
was kicked off. Yanagisawa made maximum attack from early on, but it prevented
by slippery gravel and he couldn’t push as much as he wanted. He experienced to off the line with over speed on second stage of the day which made difficult to
get good rhythm. He still tried to build up his pace, but finally gave
the lead to Taguchi on seventh stage of the day. However Yanagisawa didn’t
accept Taguchi to extend his lead easily. On final stage which their gap
was only 2.3 seconds but only 1.6km long, both of them finished in identical
time which decided nail biting battle for top with no change their position.


It was regrettable finish in second, however adding bonus point from both
days, Yanagisawa moves up to 4th on championship standings. On Asia cup,
he is leading currently.


In the meantime, Herridge started the day with 41 seconds adrift from Yanagisawa.
He could target to win, but also had to care about chasing from Clocker
who had 1 minute and 7seconds gap between Herridge. To concern battle for
championship, Cusco team who would skip next event should narrow gap to
Clocker who already skipped one event in opening round. It was kind of
mission to block Clocker’s attack. But it already proved that Herridge
had excellent talent to do mission consistently by gaining the pacific
title on first season with the team. He protected his position from his
former team mate of Subaru Australia and two time APRC champion Clocker,
and kept 3rd position. As made 2-3 finish in Round 2 in Canberra, CUSCO
RACING again showed same excellent result.


Meanwhile Sumiyama who restarted on day2 showed consistent driving with
setting time 0.3 seconds behind Herridge every stages. He compared his
time with other APRC contender first time and looking for his target point
in this series, he had done plenty of his tasks on his home country. Due
to retire on day 1, he was not on overall classification, however finished
day2 in 5th on Super Rally result following Herridge. Also he finished
the day in 3rd among Asia cup contender which was awarded bonus point 1.



Hiroshi Yanagisawa

“It’s really regrettable. However it was almost impossible to estimate
situation on day1 and couldn’t calculate time margin. Actually on the SS6,
I also had flat tyre and was continuing drive rest of 9km. But still I
was first position in that day eventually which meant I had to start on
the stage from first and to sweep gravel. For myself, stages of day 1 area
were my favourite to drive, but almost half of them were cancelled, and
we had to fight on day 2 mainly. It was kind of unlucky. However, it was
good experience to have close battle for top with strong driver such as
Katsu, and to think about how I should attack. Now top runners of the series
are very competitive, so it’s clear that to make good time to win, there
is no way other than to attack. So for next event in Malaysia, I’m just
going to push!”


Dean Herridge

“I’m quite happy with the result. Weather in day 1 was unbelievable and
was very difficult. I would like to push to win, so I made push a little
bit in the morning of day 2, but concentrated to block Cody later on. In
the end we made 2-3 finish, so I’m happy and hope team is too!”


Yuya Sumiyama

“My main object for this event was to compare my speed with other APRC
contenders, so it was disappointed to not be able to drive almost stages
on day1. However I was able to keep 0.3 seconds behind from Dean on day
2 and was able to show consistent drive in this level, so it was a passing
grade. About our next round, Malaysia, I had heard that it was very hot
over there. It was kind of task for international series, but I would like
to make good rhythm with have balance of attack and save to gain more experience.”






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