This is the last season of a regulation cycle. The last season of Rally1. This year is evolution, the next one revolution.
But the World Rally Championship’s official start to the 2026 season suggested otherwise in some ways. There are changes – and potentially more shifts to come once the cars set off from Toudon on Thursday night.
Toyota arrive as the yardstick; its 2025 season a masterclass in sheer imperiousness. Hyundai doesn’t want a repeat. Sat inside the Red Bull energy station minutes before cars would cross the start ramp to declare 2026 go, Adrien Fourmaux was adamant a corner had been turned.
“When I joined the team in January 2025, the team had to discover the tires and the new evo car that we were running a bit later,” Fourmaux told DirtFish.
“The team was moving from one place to the other in Germany; at the same time they were introducing the WEC program. And I could see that, especially when discussing with my team-mates, that things are pushing a bit more than at the beginning of the season.
“In the last four, five, six months maybe I really started to see and feel the Hyundai ‘mode’ pushing for rallying and getting the best out of the car and the team – and I can see that they are back to a good level.”
Fourmaux can feel a difference at Hyundai
Hyundai was playing catch-up last season, trying to get its head around the significantly reworked i20 N Rally1. It was a step forward in principle but with testing limited, extracting improved performance was a tough ask.
Toyota’s deputy team principal Juha Kankkunen is expecting a repeat of last year’s struggles from Hyundai won’t happen again and the championship race will tighten up.
“It will be much tighter,” Kankkunen declared. “Last season was just a dream. It doesn’t happen in decades, that kind of situation we had last year.
“Hyundai has done a lot of hard work. It will be an interesting season again.”
Thierry Neuville’s 2025 was a nightmare come to life. Mid-season last year there were rare expressions of anger at stage ends, incensed by punctures derailing his campaign. But that win at last year’s season finale has re-energized him. Relaxed and smiling as he milled around the season launch, his pre-Saudi blues are seemingly already forgotten for the 2024 world champion.
But it’s hard not to look at 2025 as blending into 2026.
“Everyone keeps saying the off-season is not so long,” said Toyota’s Sami Pajari. “It was a little depressing when you heard after Saudi that it’s only six weeks until Monte!”
For every facet that made 2026 feel like a continuation of last year, there was a counterpoint that reminded you it’s not exactly business as usual either.
Kalle Rovanperä and Ott Tänak’s absence did not weigh as heavily as expected. We’ve lost two titans of our discipline from the mix but we’re gaining another in Oliver Solberg. And being at Monaco’s Port Hercule has finally made it all real – not only for us, but Solberg especially.
“I don’t think it felt real until we were over there! I hadn’t thought of it much until then. Oh, wow, it’s rally week, we’re starting now.”
Seeing recce car 99 parked in the same group as 1, 5, 18 and 33 was another reality check for how 2026 can’t be a repeat of last year.
It was the same feeling looking at a Lancia in the queue behind the Rally1s as the season launch rehearsals began. The sight of the car was nothing new, having been formally unveiled late last year at Satory – and yes, the mechanicals are an evolution of the Citroën C3 Rally2 – but still, it’s new manufacturer representation in rallying. Doesn’t matter that it’s just another Stellantis brand. The Ypsilon Rally2 HF Integrale is a practical balance between evolution and revolution.
Lancia is a star attraction, rejoining the WRC for the first time in almost 35 years
It’s still PH Sport running the cars. It’s still the same crew in the first car and the same technical team. But in the marketing element, it is committed. The fee to register as a manufacturer entrant in Rally2 is a six-figure sum, which aside from Toyota, the at one-point team principal Didier Clément proudly showed me the physical license card (albeit by photo) issued by ACI, the Italian ASN, to compete in the WRC. The registrar is Roberta Zerbi, the Lancia CEO.
One thing remains the same: in Monte, Sébastien Ogier is the most popular man around and the default favorite to win. That hasn’t changed a bit. Last year Neuville and Elfyn Evans couldn’t stop him for winning a ninth title.
But just as the season launch shifted from Casino Square up the hill down to the port, there is a subtle shift to look forward to this season: Solberg and Lancia have entered the fray.
