Elfyn Evans claimed the 2026 World Rally Championship title in dramatic fashion at Rally Italia Sardegna, securing his maiden crown after championship leader Oliver Solberg crashed out just two corners from the finish line, Diena reported.
Evans Secures Maiden Title After Solberg Crashes Out in Sardinia
According to Sportacentrs.com, Solberg needed only to finish the remaining distance to overturn a 21-point deficit and claim the championship, having already accumulated 25 points for leading the Sardinia rally overall plus four Super Sunday points, with another five points available for the fastest Power Stage time. Instead, the Swedish driver clipped a gravel bank and brush on the outer edge of the road, sliding off the course in the final corners and handing the championship to Evans.
Evans finished the rally in fifth place overall—earning 10 points for the position plus whatever he could gain in the final speed test, where both Adrien Fourmaux and Sami Pajari posted faster times than him—accumulating 243 points across the shortened 14-round season—which concluded early after the cancellation of the Saudi Arabia rally due to safety considerations, as detailed by LSM.
Before the final round, just 21 points separated Toyota Gazoo Racing drivers Elfyn Evans, Sami Pajari, and Oliver Solberg, with a maximum of 30 points available in a single event. Evans had led the championship since April and could secure the title by scoring 19 points regardless of his competitors’ results. Throughout the weekend, Evans hovered around fifth and sixth place, knowing his title hopes depended entirely on what Solberg and Pajari did on the tracks, driving without unnecessary risk while keeping the required points in mind, aware that a single failure would force him to settle for runner-up for the sixth time in his career.
Technical Troubles Slow Sesks in M-Sport Ford
While the championship battle reached its climax at the front, Latvian crew Mārtiņš Sesks and co-driver Renārs Francis encountered persistent misfortune in their M-Sport Ford Rally1 machine. Diena reported that the pairing suffered a punctured tire during Friday’s stages, ending the opening leg in tenth place and last within the WRC classification. Because of their lower standing, the Latvian duo was forced to run first on the rocky gravel roads during Saturday’s stages, giving a slight road-sweeping advantage to their trailing competitors.
Sesks and Francis faced additional steering system failures following the first three stages on Saturday morning, preventing them from improving their position. The Sardinia outing marked Sesks’s sixth WRC start of the 2026 season, following a season-best seventh-place finish at Rally Estonia earlier in the year. In the final rally classification, Sesks and Francis finished 18th with a time of +37:01.4, placing him 16th in the 2026 championship standings with 12 points, while other notable finishers included Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston in sixth (+6:02.4) and John Armstrong and Shane Byrne in seventh (+7:32.2), alongside crew results showing Sami Pajari and Marko Salminen third (+1:37.4) and Adrien Fourmaux and Alexandre Coria fourth (+2:38.6).
Contrasting Fortunes for Toyota Teammates
Reflecting on the final moments that decided the championship, Evans admitted he could barely believe what transpired on the broadcast monitors. As reported by Go4speed, the Welsh driver noted that he had pushed as hard as possible despite struggling with a dirty road surface, only to watch Solberg run wide near the end of the stage. Evans entered the finish holding a 17-point margin over Pajari and a 21-point gap over Solberg, ultimately securing the title by a five-point margin over Solberg in the final standings. Having finished their run, Evans and co-driver Scott Martin watched alongside other crews as their Toyota teammates completed the stages, knowing the championship would go to whichever GR Yaris Rally1 crew set the fastest time in their head-to-head battle.
Solberg expressed heartbreak after the rally, explaining that he had been driving flat-out without knowledge of the intermediate split times. The championship showdown in Sardinia also marked the final competitive appearance for the current generation of Rally1 hybrid machinery, closing a five-year technical era before new regulations take effect in 2027.
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