Toyota Yaris WRC Archives

Kalle Rovanpera is youngest driver to ever win a round of the World Rally Championship

Kalle Rovanpera has become the youngest driver to ever win a round of the World Rally Championship (WRC) after he and co-driver Jonne Halttunen secured victory on Rally Estonia. At 20 years and 290 days, Rovanpera claims the record that was previosuly held by the man who is now his Team Principal, Jari-Matti Latvala (who was just over two years older when he won Rally Sweden in 2008).

The win in Estonia, the seventh round of the 2021 WRC, is the fifth victory in a row for the TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team. Driving a Toyota Yaris WRC (which was built at Toyota’s factory in Estonia), Rovanpera led after all but two of the event’s 24 stages, held over some of the fastest roads in rallying. He took 6 out of 8 stage wins on Friday in a close battle with his nearest rival, Craig Breen (with Paul Nagle) in a Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC.

The next day, he pushed harder and extended his lead with some very quick stage times. By the final day, he had a lead of 50.7 seconds, which he ultimately extended to almost one minute with an expertly-controlled drive through the last 6 stages.

Fifth consecutive win for team
The team’s fifth consecutive win (and sixth from seven rounds so far this year) is the longest-ever WRC winning streak achieved by Toyota in its rallying history. All three of the team’s cars finished among the top five, with Sebastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia coming fourth and Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin taking fifth.

Ogier and Evans remain first and second in the Drivers’ standings, separated by 37 points, with Rovanpera up to fourth. With a cumulative 315 points, the Toyota team retains its 59-point advantage at the top of the Manufacturers’ championship, ahead of the Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team.

Another 5 rounds remain between now and November, when the Rally Japan will be the final event of the championship. The next round will be the Ypres Rally, the first time that the 55-year old Belgian event has been included as a WRC round. Part of the European Rally Championship, it has a demanding route along farmland roads lined with ditches. The final day will be run around the famous Spa-Francorchamps racing circuit.

Hyundai’s new Rally2 car
The Ypres Rally will see the competitive debut of Hyundai’s new i20 N Rally2 car, successor to the i20 R5. It will be at the forefront of a new initiative from Hyundai Motorsport and the FIA to nurture rally talent from regional championships around the world for the next 3 years. In the FIA Rally Champions World Tour, title winners from 5 series – in Africa, Asia-Pacific, CODASUR, Middle East and NACAM – will get a prize drive in an i20 N Rally2 at a WRC round.

The scheme will initially benefit winners in this season’s championship and the winners in 2022 and 2023 will be rewarded at WRC events in 2023 and 2024 respectively. According to FIA Rally Director, Yves Matton, the scheme will create a pathway for competitors from non-European nationalities to reach the top of the rally pyramid. “It will provide greater diversity in the FIA World Rally Championship,” he added.

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

1-2 finish for Toyota in Monte Carlo Rally, record 8th win for Sebastian Ogier

The TOYOTA GAZOO Racing team got off to a great start for the 2021 motorsport season with victory in the Rallye Monte-Carlo. Besides a 1-2 finish, Sebastien Ogier and his co-driver Julien Ingrassia also won the legendary event for a record eighth time. The victory was also the 50th for Ogier and Ingrassia in the FIA World Rally Championship, becoming only the second competitors recording such an achievement.

This is the first time that the team has won the WRC’s most prestigious event with its Toyota Yaris WRC, having made the podium every year since its debut in 2017. It is only the fourth Rallye Monte-Carlo win in Toyota’s history, the first time being in 1991.

The event lived up to its reputation as the most demanding event on the WRC calendar with special challenges for this year’s edition. To start with, the route was different and a modified schedule to follow coronavirus restrictions in France meant that some stages took place in the darkness before dawn.

Then WRC teams also had to get to grips with tyres from the new sole supplier, Pirelli. This year, conditions were very wet with snow and ice, making tyre choice even more critical to the outcome.

The Toyota team led the rally from the third stage early on Friday morning, with each of its three entries all taking turns in the lead over the course of the rally’s longest day. On his home event, Ogier claimed the lead back with a storming stage win on Saturday’s first test. He took a 13-second advantage over Evans into the final day, when he won three of the four stages – including the rally-ending Power Stage – to begin the defence of his title in the perfect way.

With second place Evans also makes a strong start to his championship campaign, while Rovanpera begins his second season having fought for the podium on such a demanding event. Tyre damage on Sunday’s first stage contributed to Rovanpera missing out on the top three, but he did finish with the second fastest time in the Power Stage.

With Evans third quickest, the team locked out the top three positions on the Power Stage, which from this season also gives bonus points towards the manufacturers’ championship. This, combined with the 1-2 finish in the rally, means the team takes maximum points from the opening round.

TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRC Challenge Program driver Takamoto Katsuta also made it four Yaris WRC drivers in the top six as he completed Rallye Monte-Carlo for the second year in a row and scored his best WRC result so far in sixth place.

Arctic Rally Finland (February 26-28) is a new addition to the WRC calendar for 2021, taking the place of the cancelled Rally Sweden as the year’s only pure winter event. The rally will be based in Rovaniemi – capital of Finland’s northernmost region (and also the ‘home’ of Santa Claus) – with stages to take place inside the Arctic Circle on roads with a good covering of snow and ice.

Toyota GAZOO Racing reveals GR010 HYBRID Le Mans Hypercar for 2021 WEC

110th Rallye Monte Carlo starts today

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The 2021 World Rally Championship, which will have 12 rounds, begins today with the classic Rallye Monte-Carlo. The oldest event on the WRC calendar will celebrate its 110th anniversary with this year’s edition.

Over that time, the rally has formed a reputation as one of the most demanding in the world due to the unpredictable, wintery conditions in the French Alps, bringing ice and snow to the asphalt roads. This usually makes tyre selection an important element of the event and this year, the crews will be choosing from new tyres supplied by Pirelli, which commences its 4-year agreement with the FIA as exclusive tyre provider to the leading competitors.

Changes due to pandemic
While the challenge remains as tough as usual, there are a number of changes for this year’s Rallye Monte-Carlo as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 restrictions in the area. There will be no Shakedown before the rally begins, with two stages to the north of the Service Park in Gap. Tomorrow takes the competitors to the west for a loop of 3 new stages, beginning in the early hours of the day, with the first two runs then repeated in the afternoon.

On Saturday, the start takes place before dawn and there will be 3 stages before the crews drive south to Monaco, ready for Sunday’s finale. The final leg takes place further west than in recent years following severe flooding last October, meaning no trip to the iconic Col de Turini. Briançonnet – Entrevaux instead hosts the rally-ending Power Stage as one of two runs which will take place twice on Sunday.

The teams and drivers
6 weeks after claiming his seventh world title at the 2020 season-closing Rally Monza, Frenchman Sebastien Ogier will be first off the line. Ogier will be targeting a seventh WRC victory on Rallye Monte-Carlo in 8 years. He will again be driving a Toyota Yaris WRC, now in its fifth consecutive season – the last before new technical regulations are introduced to the championship in 2022. However, there will still be some optimisation which will be introduced during 2021.

So far, the car has achieved 17 victories in the WRC (winning over one-third of the events it has taken part in) and 322 stage wins. After the Manufacturers’ title of 2018, it has brought Toyota two consecutive Drivers’ and Co-drivers’ crowns, in 2019 and 2020.

Thierry Neuville, who last year interrupted Ogier’s winning run in Monte Carlo, leads the Hyundai Shell Mobis team assault together with the 2019 champion Ott Tanak. Dani Sordo makes his first Monte start since 2018 in the third Hyundai i20 WRC.

M-Sport Ford is entering two Ford Fiesta WRC rallycars with Gus Greensmith and Teemu Suninen as drivers. The 2C Competition team has Pierre-Louis Loubet in a Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC, while Japan’s Takamoto Katsuta also embarks on his first full season in an additional fourth Toyota Yaris WRC.

5 brands in WRC2
An expanded FIA WRC2 field of 8 cars for the opening round of the season features 5 different manufacturers of Rally2 cars. Regular category drivers – France’s Adrien Fourmaux in a Ford Fiesta Mk II, Russia’s Nicolay Gryazin in a Volkswagen Polo GTI, Bolivia’s Marco Bulacia in a Skoda Fabia Evo – are joined by Sweden’s Oliver Solberg on a Hyundai NG i20 or France’s Eric Camilli driving a Citroen C3. Eleven more crews, led by Frenchmen Nicolas Ciamin and Yohan Rossel in Citroen C3s, are entered into FIA WRC3.

Sebastien Ogier wins 2020 World Rally Championship title on first time with TOYOTA GAZOO Racing

While the Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team won the Manufacturers category in the 2020 World Really Championship (WRC), Sebastien Ogier of TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRT which took the Drivers title this year at the conclusion of the season in Italy

The 36-year old French driver has won titles in 7 WRCs since starting becoming an active participant in 2008. This year, with co-driver Julien Ingrassia, he used a Toyota Yaris WRC for the first time. He has previously driven in the Citroen, M-Ford and Volkswagen teams.

The Frenchman is the fifth different driver in 30 years to win the WRC title driving a Toyota, reclaiming the crown after Ott Tanak won the championship with the team in 2019. Toyota’s Elfyn Evans, also in his first season with Toyota, was on track to take the season’s driving honours until he slid off the road on an incredibly slippery right-hander on Saturday. He finished second in the championship. Ogier made it through to Sunday’s conclusion with a final margin of 13.9 seconds in a demanding rally with winter conditions that made driving treacherous.

“I feel the team would also have deserved to win the Manufacturers’ title; we fought as three drivers against five and came so close. But this seventh title for me is also a big achievement for the team and I couldn’t have done it without them, so thank you to them and I’m looking forward already to this bonus season for my career in 2021,” he said.

The event was the last one that Tommi Makinen, a former WRC champion, will have a role as team principal. Next year, he becomes Motorsport Advisor to Toyota. Team chairman Akio Toyoda congratulated Ogier and Ingrassia on their victory, expressed his consolation to Evans and paid tribute to Makinen who he said would continue supporting Toyota to make ever-better cars.

“Thanks to Tommi, we were also able to develop the GR Yaris,” the Toyota President said. “He led us to change our way of making cars through participating in the WRC.”

*The Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team won the WRC Manufacturers title for a second consecutive year. With the Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC, the team scored 3 victories and 11 individual podiums.*

Sebastien Ogier wins Rally Mexico for sixth time – in yet another car!

Sebastien Ogier and co-driver Julien Ingrassia secured their first victory for the TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team with a record-equalling sixth Rally Mexico triumph. It was also the first win on the gruelling gravel event for the Toyota Yaris WRC.

The finish of the event was brought forward to Saturday evening, a decision taken in the face of fast-changing travel restrictions connected with the global COVID-19 virus outbreak to ensure safe and timely travel home for officials, competitors and team personnel. Some countries in Europe are going into lockdown in view of the pandemic numbers increasing.

In his third start with Toyota – and first on gravel – Ogier dominated proceedings after taking the lead on Friday’s second stage. He led by 13.2 seconds coming into Saturday, and immediately extended that advantage with a stunning stage win on SS13 Guanajuatito. His final winning margin was 27.8 seconds.

With his sixth Mexico win in 8 years – behind the wheel of four different cars – Ogier moves into the lead of the championship ahead of team-mate Elfyn Evans, who finished a strong fourth with co-driver Scott Martin after running first on the loose gravel roads on Friday.

Kalle Rovanpera continued the impressive start to his top-flight WRC career in fifth place: the 19-year-old’s third top-five finish in as many rallies, together with Jonne Halttunen. Rovanpera was within a few seconds of a podium place coming into Saturday, but was disadvantaged by running early in the road order.

With its all-new driver line-up having taken two wins in its first 3 events, Toyota’s rally team has further increased its lead in the manufacturers’ championship to 21 points.

“The first two years in Mexico, we could not fight during the rally due to overheating. But our engineers have put a lot of effort into improve the cooling system and finally we reached the top of the podium! I also thank their fighting spirits for the kaizen,” said Akio Toyoda, the Team Chairman and President of Toyota Motor Corporation.

The fourth round, to have been held in Argentina from April 23 – 26 as the event organiser announced it is postponed. The postponement follows many other motorsport events around the world, including major championships. In most cases, the governments of the host countries have started to ban events with large crowds for a period of time. Malaysia, for example, has banned public gathering of more than 250 people until April 30, 2020.

TOYOTA GAZOO Racing’s Ott Tänak takes historic first title with second place finish in Rally de España

TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team driver Ott Tänak and his co-driver Martin Järveoja have made history by securing their first FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) titles with a second place finish on Rally de Espana, the 13^th round of the 2019 WRC. The event was won by Thierry Neuville/Nicolas Gilsoul in Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC.

Tänak becomes only the third different driver to claim the WRC crown since 2004, while he and Järveoja are the first Estonians to ever achieve the feat. It is the fifth occasion that a Toyota driver has won the WRC Drivers’ title, and the first time since Didier Auriol triumphed in 1994.

Having won six of the 12 rallies so far, Tänak arrived at the second last round of the season with a 28-point advantage in the championship. In the series’ only true mixed-surface event, Tänak was fifth overall following the opening day on gravel, before 4 consecutive stage wins on asphalt on Saturday promoted him up into third place.

On the final day, he opened up a comfortable advantage with the Toyota Yaris WRC over the driver behind. But it was not easy-going and he still needed to push hard on the rally-ending Power Stage to secure the title. In an incredible run over the 20.72-km stage, he was 3.6 seconds faster than anyone to not only take the full 5 bonus points, but also grab second place overall on the rally.

Jari-Matti Latvala finished in fifth position, scoring important points for the Manufacturers’ Championship, which Toyota remains in with a chance of winning at the final round in Australia on November 14 as the gap is 18 points from the leader. After retiring on Saturday morning following a crash, Kris Meeke returned to action on Sunday under restart rules.

Sending his congratulations to the duo, Akio Toyota, Toyota’s President and the driving force behind the company’s greater motorsport orientation, said: “Last year in Rally Finland, I saw so many Estonian fans waving Estonian flags to cheer on Ott and Martin. They said the flags were not a weight on their shoulders. Instead, they felt the strong support from all the fans to achieve their best. I’m glad that our Yaris WRC competed with such a strong wave of support from our Estonian friends and supporters, and we rode the wave to the championship title!”

Carlos Sainz 1990 — Carlos Sainz in the Toyota Celica GT-Four ST165 on the way to a WRC Driver’s title in 1990.

Toyota’s’ World Rally Champions
1990: Carlos Sainz (Toyota Celica GT-Four ST165)
1992: Carlos Sainz (Toyota Celica Turbo 4WD ST185)
1993: Juha Kankkunen (Toyota Celica Turbo 4WD ST185)
1994: Didier Auriol (Toyota Celica Turbo 4WD ST185)
2019: Ott Tänak (Toyota Yaris WRC)

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Toyota Yaris WRC

Kalle Rovanpera is youngest driver to ever win a round of the World Rally Championship

2021 World Rally Championship – Arctic Rally Finland

1-2 finish for Toyota in Monte Carlo Rally, record 8th win for Sebastian Ogier

110th Rallye Monte Carlo starts today

Sebastien Ogier wins 2020 World Rally Championship title on first time with TOYOTA GAZOO Racing

Sebastien Ogier wins Rally Mexico for sixth time – in yet another car!

TOYOTA GAZOO Racing’s Ott Tänak takes historic first title with second place finish in Rally de España

Kalle Rovanpera is youngest driver to ever win a round of the World Rally Championship

2021 World Rally Championship – Arctic Rally Finland

1-2 finish for Toyota in Monte Carlo Rally, record 8th win for Sebastian Ogier

110th Rallye Monte Carlo starts today

Sebastien Ogier wins 2020 World Rally Championship title on first time with TOYOTA GAZOO Racing

Sebastien Ogier wins Rally Mexico for sixth time – in yet another car!

TOYOTA GAZOO Racing’s Ott Tänak takes historic first title with second place finish in Rally de España

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