It’s early days in Safari Rally Kenya, the third round of the FIA World Rally Championship with just two stages and 12.91km run on Thursday, but it was Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja heading the score sheets in their Hyundai i20 N, 2.4 seconds ahead of Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston in their Toyota GR Yaris.

Katsuta out braked himself in stage two, sliding through a field and threading his Yaris between a pumphouse and an irrigation system, losing a handful of seconds.

“I’m very happy to be back in Kenya. It’s going to be a big challenge, more than in previous years, but I try to do my best. The second stage was already quite challenging after the rain; it was hard to judge which corners were slippery and I went quite wide at one point, but I’m still here. We could have this situation in many stages during the weekend, so it was a good reminder of what can happen. Tomorrow with some proper stages I’m sure we will see a lot of drama, but I feel comfortable with the car and just need to stay calm and be patient”, Katsuta said.

After taking a pounding in the media after his lacklustre Swedish performance, M-Sport Ford’s Gregoire Munster/Louis Louka lie in third position, 0.2 seconds behind his Japanese rival.

Kalle Rovanperä and Jonne Halttunen – double Safari winners – are a further 0.4 seconds adrift with the championship leader Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin lying in fifth despite winning the opening super special stage by 1.5 seconds.

Josh McErlean and Eoin Treacy won the rookie battle, ending sixth with Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen trailing behind by one second; first to seventh is covered by 9.8 seconds as can be expected with minimal timed running.

Thierry Neuville suffered a technical issue in stage two after a wild two-wheeled moment and lies in eighth place overall, 19.7 seconds behind Tanak.

There was drama for Adrien Fourmaux and Alex Coria who failed to get to the start of SS2 after their Hyundai’s engine refused to fire up after the re-group.

Kajetan Kajetanowicz leads WRC2 in his Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 debut with Oliver Solberg lurking 1.3 seconds behind.

There were comical scenes at the end of the opening stage when drivers either refused to give an end of stage interview or spoke in their native tongue in protest against the FIA’s swearing clampdown and Adrien Fourmaux’ s €10k fine on Rally Sweden.

The action resumes on Friday morning with the first of the day’s six stages. The biggest challenge will be the 31.40km Camp Moran test – the longest of the rally – which opens the morning and afternoon loops.

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World Rally Championship drivers have penned a strongly-worded statement directed at the FIA regarding its swearing penalties, following a similar act taken by Formula 1 drivers last year.

The World Rally Drivers Alliance [WoRDA] has issued the statement, directed at the sport’s governing body’s President, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, making its stance clear on its measures on drivers swearing.

This comes after an incident at this month’s Rally Sweden, at which Hyundai driver Adrien Fourmoux was fined €10,000 and €20,000 suspended for swearing in a television interview.

The incident was adjudged to have contravened Article 12.2.1.l of the FIA International Sporting Code, also broken by Max Verstappen at the Singapore Grand Prix last year, the Dutchman being handed a community service penalty for the offence.

The statement says that whilst “competitors must abide by the Referee’s decision,” it goes on to say “In recent months, however, there has been an alarming increase in the severity of the sanctions imposed for minor, isolated and unintentional language lapses. This has reached an unacceptable level.”

The statement also lists four key beliefs from the drivers, which are:

• Common colloquialism cannot be considered and judged as equal to genuine insult or an act of aggression.
• Non mother-tongue speakers may use or repeat terms without full awareness of their meaning and connotation.
• Seconds after an extreme adrenaline spike, it is unrealistic to expect a perfect and systematic control over emotions.
• Rally is Extreme: risk level for the athletes, intensity of the focus, length of the days… all the limits are reached. 

The statement goes on to raise the question of where the money paid in fines by the drivers ends-up.

“In such a case we question the relevance and validity of imposing any sort of penalty.

“Moreover, the exorbitant fines are vastly disproportionate to the average income and budget in rallying. 

“We are also concerned with the public impression these excessive sums create in the minds of the fans, suggesting this is an industry where money doesn’t matter. 

“This also raises a fundamental question where does the money from these fines go?”

It concludes by urging for “a direct communication and engagement between the FIA President and WoRDA members to find a mutually agreeable and urgent solution.”

WRC statement mirrors GPDA action on Ben Sulayem

The WRC drivers’ statement takes a similar approach to that of the statement issued by the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association last November, in which it urged Ben Sulayem to “consider his own tone and language” after the President stated that F1 drivers were sounding like “rappers.”

It creates a further bone of contention between another FIA-backed championship and Ben Sulayem, who has been under fire for such alterations of the rulebook.

Another issue that has been raised is the apparent lack of consistency in its penalties being handed-out to drivers.

At this month’s Jeddah E-Prix, Cupra Kiro driver Dan Ticktum swore on his team radio after being informed by his engineers that he would have to reset his car during a Pit Boost recharge, effectively destroying his hopes of scoring any points in the race.

The Brit escaped without punishment, but it is believed that it was due to the broadcast not being aired on the race’s TV coverage.

This however could play into Ben Sulayem’s threat, made at an FIA Officials summit earlier this month, that he is considering looking-into the possibility of a form of ‘shutdown’ of radio communications between driver and team.

READ MORE – Elfyn Evans wins Rally Sweden by a whisker

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Super Sunday on Rally Sweden was just that! After 300km of hard racing, Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin won the second round of the FIA World Rally Championship by 3.8 seconds from Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston in another Toyota Gazoo Racing one-two.

Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe brought their Hyundai i20 N home on the final step of the podium, fending off the attentions of the 2019 World Campion Ott Tanak and Martin Jarveoja by 4.9 seconds.

The final day featured two runs over the longest stage of the rally and the Wolf Power Stage; the first 29.35km run over Västervik saw Katsuta set the fastest time, beating Evans by a relatively massive 7.5 seconds – and re-taking the overall rally lead with a margin of 4.5 seconds and two stages remaining.

Evans dug deep in the penultimate stage, setting the fastest time, crucially 8.2 seconds faster than his Japanese teammate and with a 3.7 second cushion heading into the 8km Power Stage, it was going down to the wire!

Katsuta set the benchmark time in the Power Stage but Evans was 0.1 seconds faster, clinching 35 points for a perfect weekend score.

Kalle Rovanpera and Jonne Halttunen brought their GR Yaris home in fifth, ahead of the leading M-Sport Ford Puma of Martins Sesks and Renars Francis, winning the ‘battle of the youngsters’ by beating Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen by 22.2 seconds.

The third youngster, Ireland’s Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy, buried their Puma deep in a snow bank 14.9km into the day’s first stage. They rejoined thanks to a group of spectators who helped dig their car out, but fell way down the order.

Oliver Solberg and Elliot Edmondson made it a hat-trick of WRC2 victories on Rally Sweden after leading throughout the four day event. Roope Korhonen/Anssi Viinikka took second with Mikko Heikkila/Kristian Temonen rounding out the podium.

Read Motorsport Monday tomorrow for a full Rally Sweden report

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Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin maintained their lead on Rally Sweden after another seven blisteringly fast stages but came under intense pressure from his Toyota Gazoo Racing teammate Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston.

Kalle Rovanperä took his first Rally Sweden stage win to get the day underway. Katsuta pipped Evans by 0.5 seconds, bringing the overall lead down to just one tenth of a second. Tänak was 1.6 seconds off the lead while Fourmaux was drifting away from the fight.

On stage 10, Evans pipped Rovanperä by 0.4 seconds while Tänak had an issue – he wouldn’t say what the problem was at the stage end interview but he lost time on the next stage as well, losing his podium place to Neuville who won the last stage of the morning loop.

Fourmaux was only tenth quickest on stage 11 and dropped to sixth overall behind a resurgent Rovanperä 9.8 seconds up the road.

Munster was second on the road and was 1’56.3’ off the pace, looking all at sea and a shadow of the driver who took his maiden stage win in Monte Carlo three weeks ago.

Whatever the issue was with Fourmaux’s and Tanak’s Hyundais, it was sorted at the midday service and the two troubled drivers bounced back in style. Fourmaux took the stage win with Tänak one second behind and Evans 0.2 seconds further back.

Katsuta overshot a corner and had to reverse out, losing only 4.4 seconds but it allowed Evans some breathing space at the top of the leaderboard with a six second overall lead, while Tänak found himself 11.3 seconds adrift of the top spot, and shadowed by Neuville, 2.6 seconds behind in fourth.

“I overshot and backed up, I don’t know how much I lost. It was a stupid mistake but this is the first time I made a mistake this weekend so it is okay. I want to continue on. I feel very confident we can get the time back and will try not to make a mistake again,” the Toyota star reported at the end of the stage.

Stage 13 claimed the first major scalp – Fourmaux ran wide into a snowbank, and the front end of the Hyundai dug in. Although he tried to power the car out, it was beached up to the chassis. The frozen crew tried – in vain – to dig themselves out and were forced to throw in the towel, a fate that also befell Tuukka Kauppinen earlier in the day.

The final forest stage, SS 14, saw Neuville bank another stage win, one second quicker than Katsuta and 2.4 seconds up on Tänak. Evans dropped 2.6 seconds to Katsuta to end the serious business with a six second lead with the third Umeå Sprint left to run.

Evans had a moment with a snowbank, oh-so-close to ‘doing a Fourmaux’ but he got away with it. “It wasn’t a big hit with a bank, pretty low grip and I lost the front on the way in. The speed wasn’t so wrong, just the angle of the car was wrong. It hurts a bit down the next straight,” said Evans after his heart-stopping moment in stage 14.

The final stage saw Evans go into a sharp corner a bit too hot and he half spun and stalled, losing three seconds to Katsuta; the inter team fight was three seconds going into Super Sunday while lurking ever closer to the lead, Neuville was 3.3 seconds behind the Japanese driver and 6.3 seconds off the top step of the podium.

Tänak held on to fourth in spite of managing issues, which he refused to elaborate on. Rovanperä started the day 23 seconds off the pace and ended the day 22.9 seconds behind Evans.

Martins Sesks held sixth, 12.2 seconds ahead of fellow newbie Sami Pajari who in turn was 22.2 seconds ahead of Josh McErlean. 40.1 seconds behind the Irishman, was Munster…

In WRC2, Oliver Solberg enjoyed a comfortable 39 second lead over Roope Korhonen with Mikko Heikkila up in to third.

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Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin lost the lead of Rally Sweden twice, once to Takamoto Katsuta and once to Ott Tänak, but by the time the crews rolled into the stop control on the final Friday stage, the Toyota Gazoo Racing crew held a 0.6 second lead over Katsuta who won stage five and took the overall lead.

Evans struck back one stage later before succumbing to Tanak’s flying Hyundai i20 N on stage seven, dropping to third overall.

The final stage may have only been 5.1km long but it was enough for Evans to end the day clinging on to the lead from his on-form Japanese teammate.

The Welshman started the day in fine form, with the temperatures recording -12°C, bagging the opening stage scratch time before Hyundai’s coming man Adrien Fourmaux took two stage wins on the trot to keep Evans very much on his toes and under pressure.

Thierry Neuville and Ott Tänak both complained of understeer, as did Kalle Rovanperä and Grégoire Munster in the lead M-Sport Ford Puma. All four bled time throughout the morning.

At the midday service, Evans led Fourmaux by 1.9 seconds with Tänak 4.3 seconds behind and 2.2 seconds ahead of Katsuta, the top four blanketed by 8.4 seconds. The leading Ford Puma belonged to rookie Rally1 driver Josh McErlean and Eoin Tracey, something of an indictment on Munster’s performance.

After service and some tweaking Katsuta, Tänak, Neuville and Evans each took a stage win and by the end of the day’s action, the top five were covered by 9.1 seconds!

Sami Pajari was flying on the day’s opening stage but gave a Valentine’s kiss to a snow bank, pulling a tyre off the rim which cost 40 seconds as the Yaris limped through the stage.

The other youngster in the field, Latvian Martins Sesks built up his speed over the day, recording the third fastest time on stage five as well as stage six as he builds his confidence of rallying on snow and ice and ended the day the fastest of the M-Sport quartet.

In Rally2, Oliver Solberg has a 20.7 second lead over Roope Korhonen having won five of the day’s seven stages. Georg Linnamäe lies third, some 45 seconds off the pace in spite of winning stage six.

Positions after SS8:

1. Evans, Katsuta +1.9, Tänak +3.6, Fourmaux +9.3, Neuville +14.3

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In spite of running first on the road, Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin took the 5.16km Umeå Sprint stage win by half a second from their Toyota Gazoo Racing teammates Kalle Rovanperä and Jonne Halttunen.

Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja led the Hyundai charge, tying with Rovanperä, with Adrien Fourmaux and Alex Coria 0.7 seconds back in fourth place.

Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe set the fifth fastest time, 3.7 seconds off Evans’ time, followed by Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston and Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen.

M-Sport Ford’s rookie, Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy in only their second Rally1 start, lead the four-car strong Puma attack with the eighth fastest time, three seconds quicker than Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka while Martins Sesks/Renars Francis rounded out the top ten.

In WRC2, Oliver Solberg – chasing a hat trick of Rally2 wins – and co-driver Elliot Edmondson beat fellow Swedes Pontus Tidemand/Jorgen Eriksen by 1.4 seconds to lay down an early marker.

Earlier in the day, Neuville topped the shakedown stage times, from Sesks, Tänak, Fourmaux and Evans.

There’s a long way to go…

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Sebastian Ogier and Vincent Landais overcame everything that Rallye Monte Carlo could throw their way to claim a dominant 10^th victory at the famous event. He used every ounce of experience he’d gained over the years to conquer the treacherous route, his only moment over the entire weekend came when he clipped a pole in Thursday evening’s third stage. Flawless, in other words.

Their winning margin over their Toyota Gazoo Racing teammates Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin was 18.5 seconds although the Welshman had to dig deep on Sunday as Hyundai’s new signing Adrien Fourmaux and Alex Coria closed to just four seconds in the fight for second overall.

Fourmaux started the day in third position overall but was quickly swept aside by a determined Ott Tanak/Martin Jarveoja in Sunday’s opening stage, not helped by the Frenchman’s slow time in the dark and icy stage.

Fourmaux struck back on stage 17, pummeling the Estonian’s time by 23.3 seconds on the penultimate test of the rally, demoting Tanak back to fourth. Tanak’s slow time put him into the clutches of Kalle Rovanpera/Jonne Halttunen and sure enough, in the final Wolf Power Stage, Tanak was pushed back to fifth.

Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe had a torrid start to their title defense, clawing their way back to sixth place after three separate issues struck on Friday and Saturday while newbies Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy brought their Ford Puma home without a scratch on it to complete their Rally1 debut in seventh.

Toyota locked out the top three Super Sunday points paying positions with Fourmaux and Neuville taking the crumbs home this time out.

The opening stage of the day took care of Sami Pajari who skidded into a bridge and landed in a ravine, while  Takamoto Katsuta buried his GR Yaris into the undergrowth 1.8km into the stage.

Johan Rossel/Arnaud Dunand were untouchable in their Citroen C3 Rally2, taking a dominant win in WRC2, beating the non-points scoring Nikolay Gryazin by 1’13.9”. Eric Camilli took a last gasp second place in WRC2, beating out Leo Rossel in the final stage. It was the younger Rossel’s first rally in WRC2 and a first podium…

Read the full story in Motorsport Monday tomorrow.

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With an overnight lead of 12.6 seconds in his back pocket, Sebastian Ogier spent Saturday gradually building his advantage to 24.4 seconds with one stage remaining. Running in 10^th position on the road, his final stage was run in darkness and he conceded 4.1 seconds to his second placed teammate Elfyn Evans, leaving the eight-time champion with 20.3 seconds with three Sunday stages remaining.

“I tried to manage the risk, which is not easy in Monte-Carlo,” the eight-time world champion reflected. “In these conditions you need to be prepared to lose a bit of time.”

Evans and co-driver Scott Martin were involved in a frenetic battle with Hyundai’s new signing Adrien Fourmaux and Alex Coria for second position overall. Fourmaux ended Friday’s action just 1.6 seconds behind the GR Yaris crew.

Saturday’s first stage saw the warring drivers tied on time. On stage 11, Fourmaux pipped Evans and took second place by half a second which became 2.8 seconds on the final stage of the morning loop.

The Welshman put his head down and re-took his runner-up place with a 1.7 second gap to the Frenchman but on the penultimate stage, the positions changed yet again, with Fourmaux 0.7 seconds ahead.

With light fading fast on the final stage, Evans did what he had to do and blitzed Fourmaux’s time to end the day with a 4.8 second advantage.

While the focus was on the fight for second, Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja wrung the neck of their Hyundai, taking four stage wins to move to within 2.5 seconds of the podium. He’d closed in on Kalle Rovanperä during the morning loop, narrowing the gap to one second before surging ahead after the midday service.

After completing the final stage on Friday, Grégoire Munster and Louis Louka were forced to retire from the rally after encountering an electrical problem on the way back to the service park. The M-Sport Ford crew repaired the car and Munster thanked them by claiming his first ever WRC stage win, powering his Puma to the fastest time on the day’s opening stage by 0.8 seconds, beating Ogier and Rovanperä.

“Really good feeling”, beamed Munster. “Everyone was a bit gutted yesterday but I think this is a really big thank you for them, all the team that worked really hard last night. Years of commitment and work that finally get a reward, it is a very nice feeling.”

Rovanperä prefers fast, open stages and he was struggling to find the time, and ended the day in fifth, one position up on his flu-ridden teammate Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston, who set the fastest time on stage 12.

Sami Pajari continued his considered approach to the tricky rally, and held a solid seventh overall while the other novice, Josh McErlean entered the top ten in ninth place at the end of the longest day of the rally.

Neuville’s woes persisted in the morning when a mysterious power loss slowed him 1.4km into the opening stage. A quick system reset restored performance, but by that point the Belgian had already leaked another 50sec.

“I had to do a reset. The car went and then I lost the power like in Japan, we thought the trouble was gone. In the situation we were in we said to do a reset and we were fine since. No idea, no alarm, nothing. Now it is working,’ Neuville reported.

The three problem’s Neuville encountered over Friday and Saturday left the Belgian over five minutes off the lead.

In WRC2, Nikolay Gryazin held tenth but wasn’t eligible to score points, leaving Yohan Rossel with more than 2 minutes in hand over Gus Greensmith.

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Chasing his record-breaking 10^th Rallye Monte Carlo victory, Sebastian Ogier and Vincent Landais slithered their Toyota Gazoo Racing GR Yaris to the top of the leaderboard after the first full day of action at the opening round of the FIA World Rally Championship.

The six stages – five were run after SS5 was cancelled due a spectator medical event – had it all. Dry tarmac, wet tarmac, wet mud, and of course, black ice, making grip levels unpredictable at best and a nerve-wracking lottery at worst. Teams had a wide array of Hankook’s new rubber to choose from and countless variations abounded. Full studs, studded crossed with full winter, or even super-soft rubber all round.

Kalle Rovanpera and Jonne Halttunen set the timing sheets alight and set the benchmark time on stage four, but the most impressive drive came from Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka in the their M-Sport Ford Puma,  only 1.4 seconds behind the double WRC Champion.

All the top runners had the same storyline; difficult to predict how much and where, grip was available.

Stage six saw the first of several incidents: Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe arrived at a sharp right-hand corner and couldn’t slow down enough. The Hyundai slithered over a mound on the apex of the corner which pitched the i20 N into a ditch on the opposite side of the road. The left-rear corner was wrecked, but the reigning champion dragged his car through the rest of the stage and back to the service park.

 “I think we paid the price for not having enough experience with the tyre for the dry section, it felt like the tyre was quite stable then suddenly I lost the brakes, saw the ditch and lost the rear’”, the Belgian explained.

Hyundai teammate Ott Tanak and Martin Järveoja also had a moment, understeering into a ditch, missing a pole by inches and running along the ditch until he could floor the throttle to get back on to the road. At the stage end, after surveying what was left of his car, the Estonian said: “There is a lot missing but I am happy to be here. Some black ice was there.”

Ogier too, had a moment, a briefly ‘ditched’ his GR Yaris as well, but he got away with it. Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen went off in exactly the same place as Ogier, pulling a tyre off the rim.

Adrien Fourmaux/Alex Coria won the stage with another team-leader-esque drive from Munster, who went second quickest, beating such luminaries as Ogier, rally leader Elfyn Evans, Rovanpera and Tanak.

The afternoon loop went relatively quietly, except for Evans and Neuville. The Welshman had a spin in SS8. “I was proper steady, it just started to go and I couldn’t recover. I was on the ice, we just went a margin too far, we were almost there. We had the information, it was Bambi on ice,” he shrugged.

The spin cost Evans the lead which was now in Ogier’s hands.

Neville had a carbon copy incident on SS9 at the same corner as his stage six faux pas. This time though, he’d suffered a puncture beforehand but with the same result, bouncing over the mound and across the road into the same ditch nose first, albeit without further damage. He elaborated: “I was punctured far before, left front puncture since the beginning. We tried to go as far and as fast as we could but at some time the tyre just went and we went straight again.”

It was a French one-two in stages eight and nine with Ogier heading Fourmaux on the timesheets. At the close of business, Ogier led teammate Evans by 12.6 seconds with Fourmaux threateningly close, 1.6 seconds back in third.

Rovanpera, Tanak and Munster rounded out the top six.

In WRC2, Yohan and Leo Rossel’s Citroen C3s sandwiched Eric Camilli’s Hyundai, although Nikolay Gryazin – who is not registered to score points on this round – was keeping Skoda’s flag flying, 21.4 seconds behind Rossel (Y).

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The 2025 FIA World Rally Championship got underway with three night stages high up in the French Alps. Under the gaze of tens of thousands of spectators who lit up the night sky with fireworks and flares, Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe ended the trio of stages on top of the standings by two seconds after cautiously threading their Hyundai i20 N through the tricky mountain pass roads.

Conditions ranged from dry and wet tarmac to hidden patches of black ice which Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Sebastian Ogier and Vincent Landais conquered to lead after two stages. An expensive spin into a pole in the final stage saw the multiple champion lose 12 seconds and drop to third overall.

“On the first part [of SS3] I was painting the road, and in the last part I was cleaning the road!” Neuville smiled. “Super tricky to keep it on the road. I’m happy with the first day. Overall, our target was to finish today.”

“[It was] difficult of course. A lot of mud on the road and we hit a pole sideways. It’s always lucky to get away with that,” said Ogier at the stop control.

Sandwiched between the Hyundai and Ogier was Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin in their GR Yaris, two seconds off the lead.

Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja ended fourth, some 27 seconds adrift of the reigning World Champion with Hyundai’s third crew Adrien Fourmaux/Alex Coria finishing in fifth. The Frenchman shone on stage two, beating Tanak’s time by 3.1 seconds.

Kalle Rovanpera, returning for a full season campaign with Toyota was a little rusty and ended down in sixth position with M-Sport Ford’s new team leader Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka slotting into seventh in the standings. The Luxembourger hustled his Puma to the fourth fastest time in the final stage of the evening, narrowing the gap to Rovanpera to 4.9 seconds.

Fighting a bout of flu, Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston ended eighth, 4’30” behind the Ford.

Sami Pajari, making his Monte Rally1 debut and with Marko Salminen reading the notes finished a cautious ninth ahead of the top Rally2 team of Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov, now Skoda mounted.

Josh McErlean and Eoin Treacy, making their Rally1 debut in the second M-Sport Ford Puma, ended in 12^th position after taking a sensible approach to the start of their new career path.

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