Kalle Rovanpera wins as Toyota seals manufacturers’ title 

Kalle Rovanpera boosted his hopes of a third World Rally Championship title after taking a dominant victory at the Central European Rally, helping Toyota seal a ninth constructors’ crown. 

A matter of days after announcing plans to leave the WRC at the end of the year for a bold career move to single seater racing, the Finn delivered a stunning display to claim a third win of the year as the WRC returned to asphalt. 

Rovanpera and co-driver Jonne Halttunen successfully navigated 17 tricky stages held in the Czech Republic, Germany and Austria to seal a valuable 18th career win by 43.7s from title rival and Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans, who regained the championship lead. Hyundai’s Ott Tanak, an outside shot at the title, had to settle for the final place on the podium after losing grip of second by 5.6s on the final Power Stage.   

Toyota’s fifth consecutive WRC manufacturers’ crown leaves the Japanese brand only one behind the WRC most decorated manufacturer: Lancia.  

Rovanpera assumed the rally lead after winning Saturday morning’s stage nine having been locked in an intense fight with Toyota team-mate Sebastien Ogier, who started the rally leading the championship by two points from Evans.   

Ogier and Rovanpera quickly pulled clear of the field through Thursday and Friday, with Ogier’s lead growing to 3.9s when the crews reached Friday’s midday tyre fitting zone. Two stage wins from the three afternoon stages brought Rovanpera to within 0.3s of Ogier, before ending the day 0.6s adrift. Ogier and Rovanpera had been in a league of their own pulling almost half a minute clear of the chasing pack led by Evans. 

The battle for victory took a huge twist on stage 10 [Keply, 21.95km] where Ogier crashed from the lead in spectacular fashion. A puncture that had gone undetected by his GR Yaris’ tyre pressure alarm system resulted in Ogier veering off the road at speed and into a tree. It marked the Frenchman’s first retirement of the season, blowing the title race wide open in the process. 

Ogier’s exit handed Rovanpera a relatively comfortable 36.3s lead to take into Sunday’s final four stages. But with Ogier rejoining the rally under Super Rally rules and eager to score the maximum 10 Super Sunday points, Rovanpera had to push having started the round 21 points behind in the championship. 

However, there was no stopping Ogier as the eight-time world champion achieved his goal of topping the Super Sunday Classification and the 26.52km Power Stage to limit the damage of his Saturday exit.  

Rovanpera held his nerve to seal the victory taking 31 points, including six Super Sunday points to give his title hopes a shot in the arm. 

Evans endured a challenging rally, struggling to find the speed of his team-mates Ogier and Rovanpera. A five-second penalty for hitting a hay bale in a chicane on Thursday left the Welshman in eighth on Friday morning, but by the end of the day he’d recovered to third.  

Evans then became locked in a fight with Tanak across Saturday, losing the position to an inspired Estonian fighting with his 2024-spec i20 N. Tanak took an 8.4s margin over Evans into the final day, but battles with understeer, and a moment in stage 17 where his team-mate Thierry Neuville hit trouble, ceded second. Evans took advantage and now leads the championship by 13 points from Ogier and Rovnapera, with Tanak 50 points adrift.  

Thierry Neuville, Martijn Wydaeghe, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta picked up two stage wins on his way to a strong fourth ahead of Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux, who ran as high as third before encountering struggles to coax speed from his 2025-spec i20 N.  

Reigning world champion Neuville retired from the rally after a nasty crash into a bridge on Sunday morning that cancelled stage 15. Neuville and co-driver Martijn Wydaeghe returned to service after undergoing precautionary checks at a nearby hospital. The pair had already lost more than a minute to a puncture caused by hitting a bank in stage five.  

Sami Pajari enjoyed a trouble-free rally to finish sixth ahead of M-Sport-Ford’s Josh McErlean, who matched his career best finish in seventh. McErlean’s team-mate Gregoire Munster finished the rally under Super Rally rules after retiring on Friday due to broken rear suspension caused by the same bank Neuville hit in stage five.  

Newly crowned WRC2 champion Oliver Solberg was the fastest of the Rally2 field in eighth overall, but wasn’t eligible to score points. Therefore, the WRC2 class was won by Czech driver Jan Cerny after incidents for Nikolay Gryazin, Leo Rossel and Alejandro Cachon. 

Sweden’s Mille Johansson came from behind to snatch the Junior WRC title from FIA Rally Star driver Taylor Gill by 1.6s on the final Power Stage.

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— The Motorsport.com Team