Four sure: Sébastien Ogier wins as Toyota takes top 4 places

Sébastien Ogier won Rally Islas Canarias after a tense Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team fight that lasted until the final day, giving the team a 1-2-3-4 finish on the asphalt roads of Gran Canaria.

Ogier and co-driver Vincent Landais led from the first proper mountain stage on Friday morning and held the lead through all 17 stages. Toyota’s GR Yaris Rally1 cars also won every stage of the event for the second straight year, but the result was far from a quiet run to the finish.

Five Toyota drivers stayed close across the weekend, with Ogier’s lead never going beyond nine seconds during the first two full days.

Oliver Solberg and co-driver Elliott Edmondson mounted the strongest challenge. Solberg cut Ogier’s lead to 3.8 seconds by the end of Saturday, then trimmed it further to 2.2 seconds after winning the first two stages on Sunday.

His push ended in the penultimate stage after he ran wide over a crest and hit a barrier, which damaged the front-left corner of the car and forced him to retire.

Ogier won that same stage and reached the finish 19.9 seconds ahead of Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin. It was Ogier’s first win of the 2026 season and another addition to Toyota’s strong run in the World Rally Championship.

Evans finished second overall after staying in the fight for most of the rally. He won three stages on Saturday as changing weather from the Atlantic made conditions harder to judge.

On Sunday, Evans still had enough pace to win the Power Stage by 2.7 seconds and the Super Sunday classification by two seconds. That result moved him back to the top of the drivers’ championship.

Sami Pajari and Marko Salminen completed the podium in third place. It was Pajari’s fourth straight podium finish, which kept him in a strong position in the championship. Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston finished fourth, 10.4 seconds behind Pajari.

Katsuta had entered the rally as championship leader for the first time in his career, but he left Gran Canaria second in the standings, two points behind Evans.

Toyota scored 59 out of a possible 60 manufacturers’ points in the event and extended its championship lead to 98 points.

The team also reached another milestone, as its third podium sweep in five rounds pushed Toyota past 300 podium finishes in its WRC history. The team now has 302.

TGR-WRT chairman Akio Toyoda congratulated Ogier and Landais on their first win of the season and thanked the team for the 1-2-3-4 result. He also praised Solberg for putting pressure on Ogier until the final day and said the close fight showed the strength of the whole team.

Deputy team principal Juha Kankkunen said Toyota had hoped to repeat last year’s 1-2-3-4 finish at the event. He said Solberg’s retirement was unfortunate after a strong drive, but added that Ogier’s experience made him hard to beat.

In WRC2, Spanish pair Alejandro Cachón and Borja Rozada finished 10th overall and second in class in a GR Yaris Rally2 entered by Toyota Spain and run by MSi Racing Team.

TGR WRC Challenge Program driver Yuki Yamamoto had been running eighth in class before clipping a barrier on Saturday’s final stage.

He and co-driver James Fulton lost around two minutes while changing a wheel and tire, then finished 15th in class.

After five rounds, Evans leads the drivers’ standings with 101 points, followed by Katsuta with 99, Pajari with 72 and Solberg with 68. Ogier sits sixth with 58 points.

Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team leads the manufacturers’ championship with 265 points, ahead of Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team with 167.

The championship returns to gravel at Rally de Portugal on 7 to 10 May, with stages around Matosinhos near Porto.