WRC 2026 Rd.10 Day 2 | 2026 | PRESS RELEASE | WRC

Rally Finland: Day 2 Ogier storms clear for TGR-WRT in mixed conditions

2026.07.31 (Fri)

Sébastien Ogier leads his fellow TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team drivers after the first full day on the fast forest stages of Rally Finland.

Car 1 (Sébastien Ogier, Julien Ingrassia)

Following Thursday evening’s opening super special stage on the streets of Jyväskylä, the action moved to the forests north-east where four stages would be run twice.

Ogier, competing alongside his long-time former co-driver Julien Ingrassia for the first time since 2021, made a flying start to the day to claim the rally lead. He set the best time in three of the morning’s four tests and returned to Jyväskylä for mid-day service with an advantage of 5.3 seconds over closest rival Adrien Fourmaux of Hyundai.

Finnish favourite Sami Pajari, fresh from a maiden WRC victory two weeks ago in Estonia, was the other driver to win a stage during the morning and ended the loop in third, 8s from the lead. He started the afternoon with another fastest time, moving up to second overall.

Rain storms had been forecast for the afternoon and duly arrived during the second stage of the loop, Saarikas. Running first on the road as championship leader – a distinct disadvantage in dry weather over recent rallies – Elfyn Evans this time benefitted from the best of the conditions to win the stage and climb to third overall. Tables turned in the subsequent Sydänmaa stage, where Oliver Solberg – who conceded a minute in the worst of the conditions in Saarikas – now went quickest.

Ogier had a consistent run through both of those wet stages to grow his lead to 26.1s over Evans. Even with a safer drive in Hoho and the day’s closing run through the Harju super special, he ended the day with an advantage of 16.3s over Evans. Pajari is third, 10.4s further back and 14.6s ahead of Solberg who completes a sweep of the top four positions for the locally built GR YARIS Rally1 car.

Takamoto Katsuta went second quickest to Evans in SS7 to move up to fourth, only to then concede over two minutes in SS8 with limited visibility. He ended the day eighth overall and with a joint fastest time in Harju.

Several GR Yaris Rally2 drivers are involved in a close fight at the front of the class, with Roope Korhonen in second, TGR-WRT Team Principal Jari-Matti Latvala third and Teemu Suninen fourth. TGR WRC Challenge Program driver Yuki Yamamoto is sixth in WRC2, one place ahead of the Program’s global driver Jaspar Vaher.

Quotes:
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)
“It has been quite a dramatic day, especially with the weather. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen something like that on Rally Finland, with such heavy rain falling on dry roads, which were also already quite rutted, so they just filled with water. We were maybe a bit lucky – thanks to our road positions – on the second stage of the afternoon, when almost all our guys got through in relatively dry conditions, although Oliver did lose a lot of time and in the next two stages our drivers did encounter more rain. I’m quite pleased anyway with what our drivers have been doing; Seb especially has been very good. Tomorrow the conditions should be more normal and it will be flat-out once again.”

Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“We made a decent start this morning; the grip was changing a lot from corner to corner but the driving felt pretty committed. Then the rain arrived this afternoon and we took advantage on the second stage before the conditions deteriorated. On the next stage we got the rain pretty heavily at the start, so that was tricky to navigate, but it’s been a difficult afternoon for many people so we’re happy to get through it in this position. Seb’s had a great day and it’s a big gap to try and catch, but it’s still relatively early days in this rally and we just need to keep doing our best.”

Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 1)
“We started this morning with the plan to push because rallies like this are usually fought with very small gaps. It’s important to be in a good rhythm right away and we had a good morning, but it was still very close. This afternoon with the rain that came was a different story: then it was about trying to survive those conditions without losing too much time. It seems we managed it quite well as we increased our lead, so that’s very positive, but I’m sure the others will keep pushing and we will still have a fight on our hands for the rest of the weekend.”

Oliver Solberg (Driver car 99)
“It’s been a pretty crazy day. This morning I never quite found the perfect feeling, but I tried to not over push and to stay in the mix. In the afternoon I felt much more comfortable, and then the heavens opened. I think we were a bit unlucky with exactly when the rain hit and when it was most intense, but we fought back later on with good speed. I’m still quite happy with our day and anything can still happen, so we keep fighting.”

Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“It has been a frustrating day. This morning I was struggling for confidence but together with the team we changed quite a lot and in the afternoon the feeling with the car was much better; it was quite a big step. Unfortunately in the third stage of the loop we got a lot of mist on the screen and struggled to see anything. The main priority was to stay on the road and we lost more than two minutes. I think it was quite unlucky but there’s still two days to go and we will keep pushing.”

Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“The morning loop was pretty decent for us but we still had room to improve and we tried to step up our game for the second loop. We won the first stage of the afternoon, and even in the second one when the rain came we could close the gap to Seb to just a few seconds. Then the third stage of the loop changed everything. It was really demanding for everyone, and for some reason visibility was very difficult for us and we lost a lot of time. Anyway, we are still in a podium position and the fight is still on.”

End of day two (Friday):
1 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 1h03m47.4s
2 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +16.3s
3 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +26.7s
4 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +41.3s
5 Mārtiņš Sesks/Renārs Francis (Ford Puma Rally1) +1m04.9s
6 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1m24.0s
7 Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy (Ford Puma Rally1) +2m29.0s
8 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +2m30.7s
9 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +2m56.2s
10 Robert Virves/Jakko Viilo (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +3m08.7s
(Results as of 20:30 on Friday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)

What's next?
Saturday features familiar stages to the south-east with Parkkola, Västilä, Päijälä and Leustu all returning from last year – although Västilä and Päijälä are both run in the opposite direction to before.