It’s not something you can just jump in and do, which I think you will find out shortly.” Those are the words “ relayed by Toyota World Rally Championship co-driver Aaron Johnston as Autosport dons a racesuit, grabs a pacenote book and prepares to jump into his seat to attempt one of motorsport’s toughest jobs: being a WRC co-driver.
This is made abundantly clear six minutes and several dubious pacenote calls later as a stunned journalist clambers out of Takamoto Katsuta’s Toyota GR Yaris Rally1, following an eye-opening blast through one of Finland’s famously fast forest gravel roads. Calling pacenotes in a top-level WRC car is without question a skill that few in this world possess, and an art form that takes years of dedication to perfect.
Ardent rally fan or not, co-driving will have caught your attention, be it watching WRC onboards on television and the internet, or a misspent youth guiding a virtual rally car upon instructions of Nicky Grist through the computer game series. In a nutshell, the principal job of a rally co-driver is to deliver detailed information of the road ahead to allow the driver to pass through at the fastest possible speed. But it’s much more complex than that, as
