Elfyn Evans wins Rally Japan for the third time – Sébastien Ogier finishes second in Toyota’s dominant performance – Oliver Solberg limits the damage
Toyota puts on a show of strength at its home event in Japan, securing the top four spots. Elfyn Evans crowns himself the event’s record winner with a flawless performance. It was the final rally of the Rally1 era on asphalt. With this victory, Evans extends his lead in the World Championship to 20 points ahead of Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota; 4th).
Elfyn Evans and co-driver Scott Martin remained unfazed throughout the 20 demanding asphalt stages. The Welshman secured his third victory at Rally Japan—a new record—and relegated reigning world champion Sébastien Ogier (Toyota) to second place by a margin of 12.8 seconds.
Evans had already taken the lead on Friday and held onto it until the very end. The surprisingly wet conditions on Friday morning and the high tire wear posed challenges for the drivers, but the Welshman was always in control.
“What a great weekend. A huge thanks to the team; the car was fantastic on asphalt once again. It’s still a long way to the title; it’s too early to talk about that. We just have to enjoy this victory now,” said a satisfied Evans at the finish line.
Solberg crashes but saves Sunday
After Oliver Solberg (Toyota; 29th) put massive pressure on the leader on Saturday morning and at times cut the gap to 10.6 seconds, his dreams of victory were dashed on the tenth special stage. An unfortunate collision with a post destroyed the right rear suspension of his GR Yaris beyond repair.
On Sunday, however, the Swede made an impressive comeback: He focused on damage control and confidently secured the 10 bonus points for winning the Super Sunday classification as well as the Power Stage.
Ogier inherited second place due to Solberg’s retirement. The reigning world champion was still struggling on Friday with his starting position as sixth in the championship standings. In asphalt rallies, an early starting position is an advantage, especially in wet conditions, because every car that passes throws more dirt onto the road.
But even when his starting position was no longer a disadvantage on the following days, Ogier was never able to put pressure on Evans. He never found the right setup for the hard Hankook tires to make any kind of push for victory on the remaining stages.
Toyota dominates, Hyundai stumbles
Behind the top two, Sami Pajari (Toyota; 3rd) and local hero Katsuta completed the four-way triumph for Toyota. Pajari found the decisive pace on Saturday afternoon and celebrated his fifth podium finish of the season.
Katsuta experienced a true nightmare on the opening day. He skidded off the road on the very first stage of the rally and suffered a flat tire. “It was the worst day of the season so far. Everything just went wrong,” he cursed on Friday evening, deeply disappointed. On Saturday and Sunday, all that remained was a comeback attempt, which propelled the local hero up to fourth place.
In the Hyundai camp, which once again stood no chance against Toyota on asphalt, the picture was mixed. Adrien Fourmaux benefited later on from his aggressive dry-weather setup and finished fifth, making him the top Hyundai driver.
For Thierry Neuville (Hyundai; 6th), however, the weekend turned into a test of patience. After the Belgian had surprisingly kept up well on the wet track, he lacked any confidence in the hard tires on the drying asphalt.
A handbrake failure on Saturday and a car that Neuville described as “undriveable” on dry asphalt on Sunday dropped the 2024 world champion back to sixth place. Guest driver Hayden Paddon finished his solid asphalt run in the third Hyundai in seventh place.
WRC2 drama: Another victory for Lancia
The top M-Sport driver was Jon Armstrong in eighth place, who survived both a minor guardrail contact on Saturday and bizarre radio issues caused by sweat in the intercom. His teammate Josh McErlean rounded out the top 10 after a wheel change on SS5 cost him over two minutes.
In WRC2, the outcome wasn’t decided until the very last meters: Nikolay Gryazin (Lancia; 9th) secured the class victory in a real thriller after his closest rival, Alejandro Cachon (Toyota; 11th), spun off the road while attempting to close a narrow 2.8-second gap. However, he managed to hold on to second place in the class.
Now that the final rally under the current Rally1 regulations has concluded, the World Rally Championship (WRC) will focus exclusively on gravel stages in the second half of the season. The scorching battle in Greece is scheduled for June 25–28.