WRC 2026 Rd.4 Day 2 | 2026 | PRESS RELEASE | WRC

Croatia Rally: Day 2 TGR-WRT keeps up the fight on Croatia’s tricky tar

2026.4.11 (Sat)

TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team drivers Takamoto Katsuta and Sami Pajari remain in podium position with one day remaining of a punishing Croatia Rally.

Car 18 (Takamoto Katsuta, Aaron Johnston)

The second day of the rally took crews away from the coast and inland towards Karlovac, which would host a mid-day tyre fitting zone before the morning’s four tests were then repeated in reverse order during the afternoon. Gravel and dirt pulled onto the road would make the second pass of stages extra challenging.

After leading overnight on a round of the FIA World Rally Championship for the first time, Pajari was continuing to drive well and control his advantage, which stood at 12.7 seconds after SS13. However, he cruelly then had to stop to change a wheel and tyre early in SS14, conceding around two minutes.

Third-placed Katsuta also finished the same stage with a loss of front-left tyre pressure, dropping around 1m30s. With several other drivers also experiencing similar issues, Katsuta actually moved up to second place overall, ending the day 1m14.5s behind the new leader Thierry Neuville (Hyundai). Pajari is 31.9s further back in third position overall.

After both went off the road on Friday, Oliver Solberg and Elfyn Evans restarted this morning. Solberg won six of the day’s eight stages with Evans also regularly in the top two and winning the day’s final stage as they look ahead to the chance to pick up valuable points on Sunday.

In WRC2, GR Yaris Rally2 driver Roope Korhonen climbed to third in class and seventh overall, with Alejandro Cachón fifth in class and ninth overall. TGR WRC Challenge Program driver Yuki Yamamoto was one of many Rally2 drivers to be caught out in a slippery SS11, sliding wide and damaging the rear-right corner, but is set to restart on Sunday.

Quotes:
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)
“This has been another really tricky day. Even though the conditions have been dry, there has been so much gravel and dirt on the road, and the risk of punctures has been very high. Sami was doing such a great job in the lead, and Taka was managing things very well too, so I think they have both been really unlucky. Still, they are both in a podium position and nothing is decided yet. I know that Elfyn and Oliver will be pushing hard to score some points tomorrow, so there is still plenty for us to play for until the final stage.”

Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“It’s been good to be back out there today and we tried to learn what we could. The stages were very varied and I think tomorrow’s stages will be very different again in character, so it hasn’t been easy to use today to prepare for tomorrow. There was so much cutting and a high risk of punctures today, whereas tomorrow should be a lot more clean. We’ll be trying to score as many points as we can and let’s see what’s possible.”

Oliver Solberg (Driver car 99)
“It’s been a positive day for us, getting back out on the stages and just trying to drive well and learn more on dry asphalt with this car and with the tyres. I did have a couple of slow punctures in the afternoon but we won all the other stages, so it’s been a good day overall. I’m feeling confident about tomorrow: we will have the perfect starting position, and the speed today has been very good. The stages will be very fast and quite demanding, but let’s see how we do.”

Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“Today I was trying to push in sections where I felt confident and comfortable, and in others where there could be more surprises, I was backing off quite a bit because I didn’t want to take risks. I think we were managing it quite well, until the long stage on the second pass, when there were so many sharp rocks and stones on the road, so the puncture risk was high. It’s a pity because I was being patient and trying to avoid these things. Still, we are P2, so it could have been worse. We are still on for some good points, so tomorrow I just need to be clever.”

Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“It was all going really well again today. Everything felt quite comfortable and under control, so I’m pretty gutted about what happened. Clearly it was a really demanding stage and it was not only us who suffered. It was a slow puncture, so I saw the alarm before I really felt it, but we were so early in the stage that there was no option but to stop and change it. After that we just needed to reach the end of the day. It’s hard to find positives but at least we are still in a podium position and let’s see what we can fight for tomorrow.”

End of day two (Saturday):
1 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) 2h20m20.8s
2 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m14.5s
3 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m46.4s
4 Hayden Paddon/John Kennard (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +3m28.2s
5 Yohan Rossel/Arnaud Dunand (Lancia Ypsilon Rally2 HF Integrale) +5m14.1s
6 Léo Rossel/Guillaume Mercoiret (Citroën C3 Rally2) +6m17.3s
7 Roope Korhonen/Anssi Viinikka (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +6m32.8s
8 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Lancia Ypsilon Rally2 HF Integrale) +6m45.8s
9 Alejandro Cachón/Borja Rozada (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +6m56.2s
10 Roberto Daprà/Luca Guglielmetti (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +7m52.4s
40 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +58m23.1s
50 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1h21m23.6s
(Results as of 19:30 on Saturday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)

What's next?
The final day of the rally is formed from two brand-new stages to be run twice to the south, overlooking the Kvarner Gulf and the Adriatic Sea. The second pass of the stage from Alan to Senj serves as the rally-ending Power Stage with up to five bonus points on offer, in addition to five more from the Super Sunday classification.