Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Archives

2021 World Rally Championship – Arctic Rally Finland

Ott Tanak of the Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team dominated the Arctic Rally Finland, second round of the 2021 World Rally Championship (WRC). The Estonian was never seriously challenged during the 3-day rally over the weekend and finished with a lead of 17.5 seconds. Tanak was fastest in 5 of the 10 snow and ice speed tests in his Hyundai i20.

In second place was Finnish driver Kalle Rovanpera, 29, who has become the youngest ever driver to lead the WRC standings after finishing in a strong second place on home ground at Arctic Rally Finland over the weekend.

Driving a Toyota Yaris WRC, Rovanpera and his co-driver, Jonne Halttunen were among the pacesetters from the beginning of the rally. The rally was closely fought in the snow and ice and by the final day, they were second overall with just a gap of 1.8 seconds from the leader. Putting in maximum effort, Rovanpera extended the margin in the first of the two passes of the Aittajarvi stage.

In the repeat pass on the Power Stage, Rovanpera achieved the best time, securing second overall by 2.3 seconds – the best result of his FIA World Rally Championship career to date. With the Power Stage win, he also claimed the maximum of 5 bonus points on offer towards both the Drivers’ and Manufacturers’ standings, and now leads the championship for the first time in his career by 4 points over his nearest rival.

“It was quite a difficult weekend. I was pushing really hard and we couldn’t always be on the optimal pace, but we were fighting back all the time. In the Power Stage, I gave everything that I had and it was enough, so we got really good points from here. It’s going to be a new situation for me going to the next event, and we just have to keep up the pace and be consistent like we have been here,” said Rovanpera.

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Behind Rovanpera, two more members of the Hyundai team – Thierry Neuville and Craig Breen – finished third and fourth, respectively. However, Elfyn Evans fifth position enabled the TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team to continue to lead the Manufacturers’ championship with an 11-point advantage.

TGR WRC Challenge Program driver Takamoto Katsuta gained sixth place on the very last stage in his Yaris WRC, matching the career-best result he achieved on the opening round of the season in Monte Carlo.

Teemu Suninen and Gus Greensmith, in Fiestas of the M-Sport Ford World Really Team, were eighth and ninth, with WRC2 winner Esapekka Lappi completing the top 10 in a Skoda Fabia.

Finnish driver Hannu Mikkola, 1983 WRC champion and 3-time runner-up, passed away on Friday and tributes were made at the awards ceremony, with the Finnish Air Force sending an F-18 Hornet to do a fly past overhead.

*Hannu Mikkola, one of the legendary rally drivers of the 1970s and 1980s, passed away last Friday. He drove for the Ford, Toyota and Audi works teams, bringing them many victories.*

The next round of the WRC will be the Croatia Rally, an asphalt event, around the capital of Zagreb on April 22 – 25.

Hyundai Motorsport develops next rallycar for customer teams to use in 2021

2020 World Rally Championship to resume next month in Estonia

As with Formula 1, the 2020 World Rally Championship (WRC) also saw disruption in the second and third quarters of the season as the COVID-19 pandemic spread widely and most countries started to have lockdowns. However, with the situation having improved – although some countries see signs of a new wave of infections – and organisers understanding what measures need to be taken if they are to run events, motorsports activities are resuming.

The sad thing is that spectators are not allowed, and participant numbers must be kept to a minimum. While F1, being held mostly at racing circuits, can adhere to the no-spectators condition, rallies are a different matter as they are held in the countryside. It would be impractical to try to enforce such a condition in wide open spaces.

Resuming on September 4
Anyway, three rounds of the 2020 WRC (Monte Carlo, Sweden and Mexico) were completed before being suspended and it will resume on September 4 with the Rally Estonia. Another four rounds are confirmed in Turkey, Germany, Italy and Japan, while the events in Finland, New Zealand and Britain will not be run this year.

8 rounds instead of usual 13
The organisers are hopeful that they can add a few more events to the calendar before the year ends. In past years, there have been 13 rounds on average although the inclusion of Rally Turkey last year made it 14 rounds in 2019.

Two events which the organisers are hoping to run could be in Belgium and Croatia in the month of October. Both countries have never hosted a WRC event before although Belgium’s Ypres Rally is among the more significant ones in the European Rally Championship.

The championship so far
There was a different winner in the first three rounds – Thierry Neuville/ (Hyundai), Elfyn Evans (Toyota) and Sebastien Ogier (Toyota). Two podium finishes and a fourth in Sweden put Ogier in the lead with 62 points while team mate Evans is 8 points behind. Neuville is third, 12 points behind Evans.

With five podium finishes in three rallies, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT, using a Yaris WRC, has a commanding lead of 110 points. In second position is the Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team (89 points) which has the i20 Coupe WRC (pictured above). Third, with 65 points, is the M-Sport Ford World Rally Team using a Fiesta WRC (below).

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