We came then to the final day of this event and with 77.78km’s over four stages this was not over and with Seb and Vincent returning to the action and opening the road throughout the day, what would they be able to do with the clean roads ahead of them?
First up was SS15 Beyond Borders 1 – 12.37 km and only three crews finished the stage at competitive speed with Seb setting the pace from Josh and Greg. The reason they were the only three crews which completed the stage was because Thierry crashed on the entry onto a bridge just after a sharp left-hand corner. The rest of the crews were given a notional time.
Next up was SS16 Mühltal 1 – 26.52 km the first run through what would be the power stage. Seb was fastest in this one from Elfyn and Kalle. Ott was the best placed Hyundai with the fourth best time and the gap between him and Elfyn came down to just a little over five seconds. The Welshman had started the day well. Meanwhile Kalle continued to hold the lead with no problems.
Now it was back to SS17 Beyond Borders 2 – 12.37 km and the question was would the knowledge of the stage which Seb completed earlier give him the advantage over those who’d not done the stage, but had fresh tyres? Well, the fact was that with Seb going fastest from Kalle and Elfyn it was clear that the knowledge was the key thing. Ott was only seventh fastest and saw the gap between him and Elfyn fall to just 1.1 seconds.
Onto the final stage then, SS18 Mühltal 2[Power Stage] – 26.52 km and Seb would set the pace from Elfyn, Kalle and Takamoto. The Toyota team occupied the full top five in the stage which saw the Toyota take their fifth manufacturers championship in a row. Meanwhile Elfyn’s pace took him ahead of Ott and into second overall as the Estonian was only sixth in the stage.
Let’s take a look at the top ten and hear from the drivers.
Final Overall Classification – Central European Rally
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Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT
Kalle Rovanperä
“Huge congratulations to the whole team, including everybody in the workshop and here in the service park. To win the manufacturers’ championship again proves that we are the best team. Everyone is working super well together, so thank you. It has been a really good weekend for us. It was nice to be back on asphalt and the pace that we had was pretty fast, so we have done a great job together with the team. The drivers’ championship still won’t be easy, but we have at least increased our chances with this result, and we will try to continue like this on the next rally in Japan.”
Elfyn Evans
“I’m overjoyed for this team winning the manufacturers’ championship once again. There’s a massive effort behind this and everybody is working very hard to deliver us the best car and give us the best chances, so I have to say a huge thank you and well done. For me it maybe wasn’t quite the weekend we really hoped for. I think we should have had the potential to do more, so I’m a bit frustrated. It was important to turn things around a bit today and it was a much better day. We managed to grab the second place back from Ott, so I’m happy with how things turned out.”
Takamoto Katsuta
“It’s fantastic that we won the manufacturers’ title again this year. A huge thanks to everybody in the team, they are working so hard, and my team-mates who have done a great job also. For me it has been nice to have a good drive like this here in Central Europe and get a good feeling with the car and the tyres before Rally Japan. I can’t be fully happy and there are still some areas I need to improve, but I will keep working and pushing as much as I can for Rally Japan, which is very important to me.”
Sami Pajari
“A big thank you and congratulations to the team on winning the manufacturers’ championship. It has been quite an OK weekend on my side. I think we had some really good stage times during the weekend. There was also quite a bit of learning still, especially when the conditions were more tricky, but that’s a part of the game for us this season. Overall, I think there are a lot of positive things we can take away from this event, looking towards the next one in Japan and also for the future.”
Sébastien Ogier
“It feels fantastic to win another manufacturers’ title with this team. It’s never easy to keep improving and keep winning but that’s the spirit that this whole team has and I’m very proud of that. We need to celebrate it because nothing ever comes easy, and we will keep pushing and try to continue this success. The car was perfect today, so thank you to the team for fixing it and giving us the tools to recover the maximum points that we could after the incident yesterday. Of course, we would have preferred to come away from this rally with a better result, but we still have a real possibility to fight for the title and we can look forward to the next event in Japan.”
Hyundai Motorsport
Ott Tänak
“We did everything we could this weekend, and we need to be happy with this outcome. It’s been a tough weekend, we struggled on Friday and gave away a lot, but yesterday we were able to fight back a bit. Today had some very high grip conditions, it was also getting very racy, and we just didn’t have the answer to the Toyotas. I enjoyed the fight, but I didn’t enjoy losing it. We learnt a lot ahead of Japan, so let’s see if we can do some minor changes to improve a bit more.”
12 Round, Central European Rally
16-19 October
Photographer: Dufour Fabien
Wordwide copyright: Hyundai Motorsport GmbH
Adrien Fourmaux
“We were running well for the first few stages of the rally, but we just didn’t perform well enough on the slippery and bumpy sections. Over the weekend, we made some progress with the flat roads, but we lost time anywhere else. Today was harder, I was fighting the car a lot, but I think we have made some important progress to try and find the right setup for Japan. We still need to work on it, but I’m hoping it’s not going to be the same as this weekend.”
Thierry Neuville
“Martijn and I had quite a big hit this morning. We have completed our medical checks thanks to the ambulance crew and hospital staff who did a great job to make sure we were okay and get us cleared. Everything was normal, and then I made a mistake just before the bridge. It was our mistake; we were too optimistic with a pace note and understeered into the bridge barriers. We know that in rallying the smallest errors can have massive consequences, and that’s what happened today. We will do everything we can to come back stronger in Japan.”
M-Sport Ford WRT
Josh McErlean
“It’s been a big learning experience – we’ve had a bit of everything this weekend, running at the front and the back of the field. It was great to see Grégoire back out after his mishap on Friday so we could properly compare times. From the start of the rally to now, we’ve closed that gap to him, and that was one of our main goals coming into this event.”
Grégoire Munster
“It’s not the result we wanted after my mistake on Friday – we landed a jump and broke the suspension, but we had to try something on that stage. Overall, we’ve seen that we’re much closer to the others than we were in Gran Canaria, which is very encouraging. It’s nice to see that even in tricky Tarmac conditions we can be right there with the rest, and I think in Japan we’ll have another opportunity to show that.”
Oliver Solberg
“I’m really happy for this one – my first Rally2 win on Tarmac! The Printsport team has done a fantastic job, Elliott has been perfect again and, of course, the Toyota is the perfect car!
“The car has been so consistent for us through the weekend. Even when the weather was a little bit complicated with the rain on Saturday, we could still make everything work. We only drove Canarias on Tarmac with this car before this week, so the experience wasn’t so high for me – but, like I said, the team helped so much to give me so much confidence.”
Arriving at the history-making CER – the first ever world championship round to include competition across three countries in one day – with the WRC2 title sewn up made for a different approach for the 24-year-old.
“It was a little bit strange coming in here,” admitted Oliver. “But Elliott and me wanted to treat this like any other rally and that’s exactly what we did. When you start the event, you put your head down and do your job – this is what we’ve done all year. I’m so proud of what we have achieved.”
Summary
Well, it’s been a great drive by Kalle and Jonne this weekend. They took the most stage wins, kept the mistakes to a minimum and took a very good win. They have brought themselves right back into the championship fight. They remain third in the championship but are on the same points as Seb and Vincent.
Elfyn and Scott had their moments of pace and kept it safe when they didn’t feel it was the right thing to do. The penalty on Friday certainly didn’t help but they held their nerve and took a well-deserved second overall which put them back into the lead of the championship.
Ott and Martin did enough to take third place after their teammates either made mistakes or just did not have good enough pace throughout the whole weekend to be able to deliver a strong result. They almost had enough for second overall but didn’t have the pace to hold off Elfyn and Scott.
Next up is Rally Japan for the thirteenth round of this year’s championship over the sixth to ninth of November.
2025 FIA World Rally Championship for Drivers’ Standings
After round 12
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2025 FIA World Rally Championship for Manufacturers’ Standings
After round 12
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