Takamoto Katsuta has taken his second successive World Rally Championship win – and with it the lead of the drivers’ championship standings – after Thierry Neuville crashed out of the powerstage and lost a near-certain win.
Neuville had inherited the lead from Toyota’s Sami Pajari on Saturday afternoon when the 24-year-old suffered a puncture – along with five other drivers – on stage 14 and had planned to cruise through Sunday to collect the win, with a lead of over a minute over Katsuta in hand heading into the last four stages.
But on the very last stage of the rally Neuville slid wide on loose gravel at a fork in the road and, uncertain whether to stay on the road or take the escape route, made a last-minute reaction to go down the latter.
But doing so led to him clipping a concrete block at the split between the two roads, destroying the front-right suspension on his Hyundai i20 N Rally1.
Neuville attempted to press on but by the second split had already lost enough time to concede the victory. He then parked up near the finish, having been radioed by Hyundai team manager Pablo Marcos to stop, worked on his car for nearly 20 minutes and then crawled to the finish line in 20th place. But with extensive front-right damage, he retired after the finish line.
What was expected to be a victory that lightened the mood at Hyundai turned dark on the rally's final stage
“I can only say sorry to everyone involved,” said Neuville. “Working hard, that’s the only thing I can say. All the rest we will see later. I’ve no explanation at the moment, so, sorry. This cannot happen but we will see exactly what went wrong.”
A confused Katsuta was told in real time at his finish interview that Neuville had crashed, learning he’d won his second rally in a row in the most astounding circumstances.
“I’m sorry for Thierry,” said Katsuta.
Pajari finished second, 20.7s behind Katsuta, with Hayden Paddon taking his first WRC podium since Rally Australia in 2018 in the lead Hyundai.
Such was the level of attrition during the rally that WRC2 winner Yohan Rossel was fourth overall, securing Lancia’s first ever victory in the Rally2 class on its second outing with the new-for-2026 Ypsilon Rally2 HF Integrale.
Yohan Rossel turned in a dominant performance to clinch Lancia's first WRC2 victory
Rossel’s lead never looked in doubt as he edged ahead of the field throughout the rally, leading home younger brother Léo Rossel in a Citroën C3 Rally2 for fifth overall.
Roope Korhonen had started the day in the final WRC2 podium place but his relative lack of experience on the faster, wider and racetrack-like roads used on Sunday’s pair of stages were his downfall.
The writing was on the wall after the first stage of the day, with plenty of Finnish expletives deployed as he crossed the finish line.
“I don’t know why this kind of road is really f***ing difficult for us, I don’t know,” said a frustrated Korhonen. “We have to go home and learn.”
Nikolay Gryazin, who’d lost a minute aboard the second Lancia on Saturday after his car’s turbo pipe came loose, passed Korhonen for what would later become sixth overall on SS18, then Alejandro Cachón nicked seventh away on the penultimate stage.
“Honestly after yesterday, at the moment feeling is quite bad,” said Korhonen. “But OK, some points for the championship and yesterday the pace was really good in some stages, so of course that’s a positive. Now we know better what kind of things we have to improve. I guess in the next one we are stronger.”
Oliver Solberg crashing out three miles into the rally’s opening stage – understeering into a bank while pushing on hard tires he was unfamiliar with – and then Elfyn Evans suffering a pacenote mixup and going off the road on stage three meant the pair had the ideal road position for the final day’s action.
Solberg bounced back from his stage one shunt to take maximum Sunday points
Six stage wins from eight on Saturday was a precursor to Solberg pulling off a clean sweep on Sunday, taking the maximum 10 points from the Sunday classification and the powerstage. Evans was second-best on both.
“It’s very bittersweet, I have to say,” said Solberg. “My mistake clearly on Friday, I was just too optimistic on that hard tire so for sure that’s not the most clever thing I’ve done. After that I came back to the feeling that I had from shakedown. The pace has been fantastic and the feeling absolutely brilliant.”
Katsuta now leads Evans by seven points in the title race, with Solberg a further six behind. Pajari’s second place has vaulted him to fourth in points, 29 behind Katsuta.
Though he finished outside the top 30 overall Jon Armstrong’s performance suggested he was capable of fighting near the front, coming close to stage wins during the rally. He scored six points on the final day, going third-fastest across all of Sunday’s stages and the powerstage itself.
Adrien Fourmaux’s rally was marred by a string of problems: he was one of the first to suffer a puncture in the Rally1 field and lost a minute and a half on Friday, then retired on Saturday when he clattered into a telegraph pole and ripped the left-rear wheel off his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 on SS12.
Hyundai had the consolation of Hayden Paddon bringing home a podium finish – but its other crews suffered bitter blows
Sunday was no better for Fourmaux, with co-driver Alex Coria’s pacenote book going missing and resorting initially to reading notes off a phone and subsequently using copies of notes provided by their route note crew. He then suffered a puncture on the powerstage, though he still picked up two points for being the fourth-fastest car on Sunday regardless.
“It happened like in SS2 at the beginning of the rally,” said Fourmaux of his powerstage puncture, “We had a puncture somewhere in the line, I did not feel anything. Once again it was on a left hand corner with a wheel on the outside.
“Anyway, a rally to forget for us.”
Fourmaux remains the best-placed Hyundai in the drivers’ championship, 32 points off the pace.
Josh McErlean was another Rally1 driver with no points on the board from Croatia and also suffered throughout: on Saturday he had a starter motor failure, a cockpit fire midway through SS10 and two punctures, but completed every stage regardless.
