On Sunday, Toyota celebrated its sixth win of the season on the island of Sardinia. Before the season began, it was expected that Toyota and Hyundai would once again battle evenly throughout the year. But as the season nears its halfway point, Toyota leads the WRC teams’ contest by 6–0.
“We’ve won six rallies out of six, and I never would have believed we’d be able to perform this strongly in the first half of the year,” Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala marvelled to RallyJournal.com.
What makes the performance in Sardinia even more impressive is that Toyota’s drivers Elfyn Evans, Kalle Rovanperä and Sébastien Ogier were the first cars on the road on Friday’s gravel stages. Despite that, Ogier took the rally win, Rovanperä finished third, and championship leader Evans came home fourth.
The only one to break up the Toyota domination was Hyundai’s Ott Tänak, who secured second place.
“It was a really good weekend. Kalle took maximum points on Sunday and Ogier won the rally, so you couldn’t really ask for more,” Latvala said.
However, the win nearly slipped away from Toyota and Ogier on the final stage. Ogier ran wide on the Power Stage and had to reverse before continuing—costly seconds ticking away.
Still, Ogier managed to hold on and clinch the win by 7.9 seconds over Tänak.
“My heart rate definitely spiked during the Power Stage. It was pretty tough to watch after the six-kilometre mark. It felt incredibly long—like the stage was never going to end. There was definitely some pressure on the body when Ogier hit that tree,” Latvala sighed.
Ogier’s close call brought back memories of last year’s decisive moments in Rally Sardinia, when he suffered a puncture on the Power Stage and lost the win to Tänak by just 0.2 seconds.
This time, the Estonian remained behind.
“We knew beforehand that there was going to be drama. But I would say there was even more than expected, even on the last stage. I don’t understand why there always has to be a little bit of drama on the Power Stage of the rally,” Latvala laughed.
“Generally, I have to be really happy because we were starting quite near the front, opening the roads. And eventually, we were still able to win the event.”
Toyota drivers Evans, Ogier and Rovanperä currently occupy the top three positions in the WRC standings ahead of Tänak. The next round of the season takes place in Greece at the end of June.
