The scores are reset to zero and the story is waiting to be written. World Rally Championship 2026 is just one week away.
Commencing at Rally Monte Carlo, teams have been putting their cars through their paces in the French Alps in preparation for the challenge ahead.
DirtFish was invited to Hyundai and Toyota’s media days, as well as the final day of M-Sport’s pre-event testing, and this is what we learned:
Evans’ changed view of Ogier
Replaying 2025 in his mind and wondering where he could have recovered those four missing points to team-mate Sébastien Ogier must’ve been so tempting for Elfyn Evans.
But it’s a new year and a new challenge – what’s happened in the past will not directly influence Evans’ future.
However Evans did admit he’ll be far more wary of Ogier’s championship posiiton this year, now he knows he cannot be discounted as a player.
There were times at the start of last year – mainly Monte Carlo and Islas Canarias – where Evans fell 18s and 23s short of Ogier respectively, but wasn’t too stressed about beating him because, at that time, he wasn’t viewing the Frenchman as a title rival.
That won’t be the case in 2026.
Paddon’s not expecting miracles
A lot’s changed since Hayden Paddon last walked into Hyundai Motorsport’s engineer truck and donned a set of factory overalls.
That includes his targets, which no longer recvolve around being world champion but instead playing the supporting role for his team-mates Thierry Neuville and Adrien Fourmaux.
That’s not to say it’ll be easy – Paddon’s a perfectionist and as competitive as anybody, so he’ll need to fight his natural instincts.
But the difference in intensity between Paddon and Neuville at Hyundai’s media day last Saturday told the full story. Neuville’s a man hunting every last tenth; Paddon was learning a brand-new car he’d only driven for 20km when DirtFish got in the co-drivers’ seat.
Nobody’s expecting miracles. Even Neuville, who was complimentary of Paddon’s skills and general return to the team, said “we shouldn’t expect too much” from the Kiwi in Monte Carlo given the scale of the mountain he needs to climb.
M-Sport’s team is its greatest strength
M-Sport has long had strong underdog energy in the World Rally Championship, trying its utmost to fight with the two fully-fledged manufacturer operations it shares the service park with.
Punching above its weight is therefore nothing new, but the cohesion between its two full-time drivers in 2026 may give it a vital advantage.
Not to say Josh McErlean and Grégoire Munster didn’t work together last year for example, but in having two Irishmen who are team-mates not just in the team but in their federation’s academy (Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy) – with Eoin Treacy also a former co-driver of Jon Armstrong – as well creates a stronger unified feeling than maybe ever before.
The tempting conclusion to reach is that McErlean vs Armstrong is a grudge match; each trying to prove to benefactor John Coyne why they should be the chosen one.
Witnessing the two of them interact as they shared the driving on Monday, the opposite is true; although it is worth remembering this was in a non-competitive environment. That rivalry may intensify if a big result is at stake.
Neuville’s ready to fight back
Answering a question from Club DirtFish member Fi Bond about how he has mentally reset for this year following his disappointing title defense, that trademark grin grew across Thierry Neuville’s face.
“It was very simple switch off and forget about what happened. Which year was it actually?” he laughed. “I don’t know…”
The 2025 season has been consigned to Neuville’s past and he’s ready to lock in again in 2026.
It won’t be straightforward. Neuville openly admitted Toyota is a very strong benchmark that Hyundai had no real answer for last year, but has confidence in recent team restructuring and testing to further understand the so-called ‘Evo’ of the i20 being good platforms to challenge Toyota – which had close to the perfect season last term.
As he put it: “It will be difficult for us to do worse [than last year]. And it will be difficult for Toyota to do better. So maybe we can find something in the middle…”
Ogier’s not done yet
Sébastien Ogier has the world at his fingertips, even if he may be close to running out of fingers to count his world titles on…
Last Sunday was yet more proof of it.
Admittedly we were firmly in his part of the world, but no other driver we saw over our three days in the Hautes-Alps had fans queuing to see them – some even with impressive home-made sculptures.
No other manufacturer driver in 2026 has their own, bespoke livery (like Ogier now does with Red Bull) and on current form, nobody’s driving better.
How far that will take Ogier in 2026 depends if you truly believe he’ll do 10 rounds of the championship. If we take him at his word back in Saudi Arabia where he lifted crown number nine, it’ll be even harder for him to win again this year with one fewer event in his schedule.
But are we really ruling out the possibility of Ogier extending his program again (so long as the event doesn’t clash with German school vacations) if he sniffs that history-making 10th world title?
Ogier’s words at his title celebration in Gap may offer a clue: “Meeting the people, signing autographs, making a lot og selfies like always and a little bit of show as well, I think is a great mix. I think they’re proud that we brought the color of Gap and the Alps to the top of the world in rally and since many years now. So let’s try to carry on even longer.”
