Ott Tanak set the pace in the opening super special stage of Rally Saudi Arabia to grab an early lead, while Sebastien Ogier edged World Rally Championship title rival Elfyn Evans.
The WRC’s all-new season finale began with a 5.22km Jameel Motorsport Super Special head-to-head stage in Jeddah on Wednesday night, which acted as a curtain raiser ahead of brutal gravel stages that will decide the 2025 title.
Hyundai’s Tanak emerged as the pacesetter after delivering a blistering run to beat the third title contender Kalle Rovanpera (24 points behind Toyota team-mate Evans) by 2.5s in their duel on the dusty asphalt.
The effort was enough to hand Tanak an early rally lead in what will be the Estonian’s last WRC event before taking a sabbatical in 2026. The 2019 world champion ended the stage 1.2s faster than Ogier, who pipped Evans in their heat by 0.9s.
“I’m not sure about the performance and hopefully the reliability will be a bit better than it has been this year,” said Tanak. “I can say it will be a proper test for that. A tricky one [rally] and very difficult to predict, we just need to go for it and manage it the best.”
Ogier took first blood in the battle for the 2025 title but wasn’t getting carried away by the fact he was quicker than Evans, whom he trails by three points in the championship.
Sebastien Ogier, Vincent Landais, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT
Photo by: Toyota Racing
“We are grown up enough to know that tomorrow is when the rally starts, and in here you can only lose the rally. We will try our best and it will be a tough weekend ahead but we are focused,” said Ogier.
Evans clocked the fifth fastest time, 2.1s adrift, finishing behind returning M-Sport Ford driver Martins Sesks and Hyundai’s reigning world champion Thierry Neuville.
“Getting to the end will already be a challenge. Of course we are going to have to drive well but drive with our heads this weekend. We will give it the best shot we can,” said Evans.
Neuville ended the stage hopeful that he could end what has been a dismal title defence with a strong result for Hyundai.
“It is the last rally of the year and will be about getting the good feeling straight away and having fun out there. Usually if you have fun things work well,” said Neuville.
“There will be no testing [components for next year] this weekend, just driving and concentrating on trying to bring home a good result for the team. Despite having missed many results this year everybody has still worked hard and deserves a good end to the season.”
Kalle Rovanpera, Jonne Halttunen, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota GR Yaris Rally1
Photo by: Toyota Racing
Rovanpera labelled his run through the stage as “disgusting”, having battled understeer in his Toyota during his run to sixth.
Toyota’s Sami Pajari, Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux, Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta and M-Sport’s Gregoire Munster rounded out the top 10, ahead of team-mate Josh McErlean.
Five-time Dakar Rally winner Nasser Al-Attiyah made an eventful return to the WRC, picking up a 10 second jump start penalty in the stage that dropped the M-Sport driver outside of the top 20.
Six gravel stages await the crews on Thursday before the leg is completed by another blast through the Jameel Motorsport Super Special.
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