The total potential of Haas’ partnership with Toyota is but to be explored – but it surely has already helped one of many group’s drivers fulfil a childhood dream: Esteban Ocon acquired to drive the GR Yaris Rally1 automobile in the course of the Goodwood Competition of Pace.
“I saved telling them since we went to Japan how I like vehicles and the way I all the time wished to check a WRC automobile,” Ocon advised Motorsport.com. “They gave me my first style of gravel driving on a correct observe with a highway automobile GR Yaris in Japan [earlier this year]. I believe the request got here from the boss himself, [Akio] Toyoda.
“And truthfully, I can not thank them sufficient. I did not sleep very a lot the evening earlier than. It was a dream come true, truthfully, to drive this automobile.”
The group initially saved it a secret from Ocon till he noticed his schedule for the Goodwood occasion.
“So, I obtain it and I begin to have a look at it, and I see ‘Esteban, WRC’,” he remembers. “So, I known as Ayao [Komatsu, the Haas team principal], saying, ‘Ayao, what’s that? Am I driving the WRC?’ And he is like, ‘No, no, we simply made a mistake.’ After which he begins laughing. And I am like, ‘Okay, so what’s it then?’ He is like, ‘No, no, really, you sit as a co-driver.’ After which he laughs once more. So I went via all of the levels of feelings. However really, it turned out that Toyota [gave] me an enormous shock. They wished me to drive the WRC.
“That was the expertise that I’ve all the time wished. Once I was younger, I had a dream to – someday, if I am profitable sufficient in Components 1 – purchase a WRC automobile that I can drive day-after-day. After which go to the store with it and, you realize… I discovered about it later: these vehicles are highway authorized, however it’s important to have a particular allow for the competitors. However after I was 12, that was my dream.”
The expertise “did not disappoint” Ocon – not least as a result of he each drove the WRC automobile and acquired a passenger journey alongside Toyota rally driver Takamoto Katsuta.
“It was tremendous spectacular, truthfully,” he stated. “With some vehicles, perhaps typically you take a look at and, since you drive the F1 vehicles, you are a bit blase from all the pieces else.
“However this was unimaginable, how tremendous properly engineered it’s. It jogged my memory of the DTM vehicles. It is mainly like, all the pieces is a prototype. However all the pieces is so properly thought. The handbrake is tremendous straightforward, you needn’t use the clutch. The steering feels tremendous easy, very straightforward to make use of. The throttle is tremendous brief in a method that it’s important to go full throttle right away. I had a blast.
Esteban Ocon attempting out WRC vehicles with Takamoto Katsuta
Photograph by: Toyota Racing
“And first, you realize what was essentially the most spectacular? Leaping on the facet of Takamoto Katsuta. If I drove it solely, I’d have thought, yeah, the grip will not be that nice and all of that. However after I jumped on the facet of him, I used to be like, ‘okay, that is one thing else’.”
Would Ocon contemplate doing rallies sooner or later?
“For enjoyable, after my F1 profession, undoubtedly,” he says. “However, it might by no means be in a Rally1 class. I’ll in all probability give them a name to have a take a look at in some unspecified time in the future, you realize, to have enjoyable for certain – in the event that they let me have the chance. However first, to belief me to drive these vehicles on the rally stage, I can be ceaselessly grateful to Toyota, as a result of it is superior.”
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