Sébastien Ogier has won Rally Islas Canarias in a 1-2-3-4 finish for TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team after prevailing in a thrilling intra-team battle.
The GR YARIS Rally1 car dominated from start to finish on the pure asphalt roads of the island of Gran Canaria for the second year running, winning all of the event’s 17 stages. There was little to separate the five TGR-WRT drivers, however, and they put on a exciting battle for the victory and the podium places that went down to the final day.
Ogier led the rally from the first proper mountain stage on Friday morning until the very end, but he was pushed hard by his team-mates and his lead was never greater than nine seconds across the first two full days of competition.
It was Oliver Solberg who emerged as Ogier’s strongest competitor, and he had closed to within 3.8s by the end of Saturday, before cutting the gap further to 2.2s with wins in the first two stages on Sunday. In the rally’s penultimate stage however he ran slightly wide over a crest and made contact with a barrier, damaging the front-left corner of his car and forcing him and co-driver Elliott Edmondson to retire.
Ogier and his co-driver Vincent Landais won the same stage and went on to claim their first victory of the season by 19.9s.
Elfyn Evans finished second overall with co-driver Scott Martin, having also been a factor in the win battle for much of the weekend. He won three stages on Saturday as changeable weather conditions blew in from the Atlantic Ocean, and remained close to the pace of Ogier and Solberg on the final day in pursuit of additional championship points.
Evans ultimately won the Power Stage by 2.7s and the Super Sunday classification by 2s to reclaim the lead of the drivers’ championship.
Sami Pajari continued his strong recent form to secure a fourth successive podium finish together with co-driver Marko Salminen in third place overall.
Takamoto Katsuta came into the rally leading the drivers’ championship for the first time in his career, and improved his pace during the event to finish only 10.4s behind Pajari in fourth position together with co-driver Aaron Johnston.
Katsuta was second to Evans in the Power Stage and fourth in Super Sunday behind Ogier and Pajari and is now second in the championship, two points behind Evans. Pajari is up to third, 29 points from the lead, with Solberg four further back in fourth.
TGR-WRT scored 59 of the available 60 manufacturers’ points to increase its championship lead to 98.
The team’s third podium lockout in five rounds so far this season takes Toyota past the 300-podium mark across its WRC participation, with 302 podium finishes now to its name.
Spanish duo Alejandro Cachón and Borja Rozada finished 10th overall and second in the WRC2 class in their GR Yaris Rally2 car entered by Toyota Spain and run by MSi Racing Team.
TGR WRC Challenge Program driver Yuki Yamamoto was running well in eighth position in the highly competitive class against many experienced and proven winners on asphalt until he clipped a barrier in Saturday’s final stage and had to stop and change a wheel and tyre, conceding two minutes. He and co-driver James Fulton continued to set competitive pace on Sunday on their way to 15th place in class.
Quotes:
Akio Toyoda (TGR-WRT Chairman)
“Seb, Vincent - congratulations on your first victory of the 2026 season.
I would also like to thank everyone on the team for delivering a 1-2-3-4 finish.
Oliver, too, kept Seb under pressure until the final day, chasing him with only a few seconds between them.
This rally was made possible by the “overall strength of the entire team,” something that cannot be achieved by the car alone or the drivers alone. Again, thank you to everyone on the team.
The close battle for victory between the very experienced Seb and the young Oliver was truly exciting. I heard that even while Oliver was closing in within just a few seconds, Seb continued, as he always does, to offer advice to Oliver.
I believe that this kind of warm knowledge sharing from Seb truly strengthens the team. It also contributes to enhancing the greatness of the sport. Thank you, Seb.
I also hope that Oliver’s fight for the lead with Seb, and his retirement this time, will lead to further growth for him.
So far this year, Oliver has won, Elfyn has won, Takamoto has achieved back to back victories, and this time, Seb has won. Sami - keep pushing hard toward your first WRC victory!”
Quotes:
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)
“It has been a fantastic rally for us with a very good result at the end of it. We had the same 1-2-3-4 result last year and I was dreaming that we could repeat that, and we have managed to do it. It is a pity what happened to Oliver today because he was driving a very good rally until that point and it was a very exciting battle between him and Seb, but these things can happen when you have the chance to win like he did. Seb is so hard to beat with his experience, and Elfyn and Sami have both done a great job to be on the podium as well. It’s a big pleasure to lead this team: the atmosphere is fantastic, everybody is giving 100 percent, and that’s how we achieve results like this.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“It’s been a solid weekend for us with a pretty good final day and a good haul of points at the end of it. We made a bit of a slow start on Friday and that really put us too far back in the fight for the win, but things have worked out pretty well in the end. It was very close again today between us, Seb and Oliver. It was unfortunate what happened to Oliver, but congratulations to Seb, who has driven an exceptional weekend and deserves the win.”
Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 1)
“First of all, this has been a very enjoyable rally. The team has given us an amazing car to drive once again and it was a lot of fun behind the wheel. It was really close all weekend with my team-mates and especially with Oliver, so I feel sorry for him and for Elliott because they were delivering another strong performance. On our side, we can be happy and proud about the job we’ve done this weekend and I’m happy to add a new rally to the palmarès. It’s been a fantastic performance by the team, so hats off once more to everybody for their efforts.”
Oliver Solberg (Driver car 99)
“It was a very big disappointment what happened today. It had been a fantastic fight all weekend with Seb and Elfyn, and I had a great feeling in the car and just tried to drive with my normal rhythm. Unfortunately I just made a small mistake in this right-hander over a jump. On the first pass we had been much slower in the rain, and now in the dry I was just too optimistic, jumped a bit too far and into the rail on the left-hand side. I’m just sorry for the team. It’s been a big learning curve so far this year, but we will try to take the positives again and look forward to the next rally.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“This rally started with a very difficult Friday for me, but it got a lot better on Saturday and I was starting to feel much more comfortable with the car. I was still struggling a bit to get the best from the tyres, but today on the final day I tried to change my driving style a bit and it was working better and we could take some good points. There’s still more to improve, but it’s going in the right direction at least and I have a good idea how to improve my driving for asphalt, which will be important with Rally Japan coming.”
Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“It’s always positive when you can finish on the podium, and especially to now have four in a row at this point in my career. This is really great for us. Still, this weekend I felt I had a bit more to give. There were some good stages and good sections, but also some other things which we need to work on and improve for the future. It’s nice to see we can take these podiums, but you always want more. But I’m happy with this result and another great performance from the whole team.”
Yuki Yamamoto (Driver WRC Challenge Program GEN2)
“It is a pity what happened in the final stage on Saturday, because until then we had been able to climb the order and were enjoying the really tight battles on these stages. Unfortunately we clipped the edge of the guardrail with the tyre, which caused a puncture that we had to stop and change, so we lost a lot of time. I think we were a bit unlucky, but it was my mistake and I think we can learn from that. Otherwise we showed some good pace and I know where we can improve, so I think we can be stronger on the next asphalt event at Rally Japan.”
PROVISIONAL FINAL CLASSIFICATION, RALLY ISLAS CANARIAS
1 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 2h43m18.9s
2 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +19.9s
3 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m40.8s
4 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m51.2s
5 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +3m29.5s
6 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) + 3m41.0s
7 Dani Sordo/Cándido Carrera (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) + 3m57.7s
8 Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy (Ford Puma Rally1) +5m45.4s
9 Yohan Rossel/Arnaud Dunand (Lancia Ypsilon Rally2 HF Integrale) +7m24.3s
10 Alejandro Cachón/Borja Rozada (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +7m49.4s
Retired Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1)
(Results as of 14:30 on Sunday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
WRC2 class
1 Yohan Rossel/Arnaud Dunand (Lancia Ypsilon Rally2 HF Integrale) 2h50m43.2s
2 Alejandro Cachón/Borja Rozada (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +25.1s
3 Eric Camilli/Thibault de la Haye (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +51.2s
4 Roberto Daprà/Luca Guglielmetti (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +1m00.6s
5 Léo Rossel/Guillaume Mercoiret (Citroën C3 Rally2) +1m02.3s
6 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Lancia Ypsilon Rally2 HF Integrale) +1m09.5s
15 Yuki Yamamoto/James Fulton (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +4m41.3s)
2026 FIA World Rally Championship for drivers after round 5:
1 Elfyn Evans 101 points
2 Takamoto Katsuta 99
3 Sami Pajari 72
4 Oliver Solberg 68
5 Adrien Fourmaux 59
6 Sébastien Ogier 58
7 Thierry Neuville 35
8 Esapekka Lappi 21
9 Yohan Rossel 20
10 Léo Rossel 18
2026 FIA World Rally Championship for manufacturers after round 5:
1 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team 265 points
2 Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team 167
3 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRT2 75
4 M-Sport Ford World Rally Team 63
What's next?
A return to gravel comes at the popular Rally de Portugal on May 7-10. Based in Matosinhos near Porto in the north of the country, it features classic stages on sandy and rocky roads.
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