To be successful in the World Rally Championship, you need to be fast on all surfaces and in all conditions.
But sometimes, just sometimes, there’s one particular rally that suits a driver and they therefore always tend to go well on it.
Estonia is certainly that place for the reigning world champion, who this time last week was recording his third win there in as many years.
That got us thinking here at DirtFish: what are the most successful events for all the current Rally1 drivers?
Figured out where this is going yet? Good, because here they are!
Kalle Rovanperä
Hardly a shocker given we just mentioned it in the intro, but it is interesting just how dominant Rovanperä has been in Estonia.
It has only been a WRC round for four years, yet the 22-year-old has won it three times – and was leading in 2020 before a puncture ruled him out.
Claiming his first ever WRC win in 2021, Rovanperä blew the opposition away in both 2022 and ’23. It means 30% of his career wins so far have been on Estonian soil.
Elfyn Evans
Elfyn has won six events so far in his WRC career, and they’ve all been on different rallies. So this one has taken into account how many other podiums he achieved in the country.
And that makes Rally of Portugal Evans’ most successful event.
Winning the rally in 2021 after seeing off the challenge from Dani Sordo’s Hyundai, Evans came home second a year later in 2022, edged by team-mate Rovanperä.
But Evans was also on the podium for M-Sport Ford in 2018, finishing second behind Thierry Neuville and just ahead of team-mate Teemu Suninen.
Sébastien Ogier
Sébastien Ogier has broken the all-time event win record on two WRC events this season, but it’s Monte Carlo – not México – which stands as his most successful WRC event.
Ogier has nine Monte wins, although only eight in the WRC as one of those was in 2009 when it was a round of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge. But either way the Monte has been the kindest event to Ogier over the years, who first won it in the WRC in 2014 and has only been beaten twice since then.
First by Thierry Neuville in 2020 and then by Loeb in that epic showdown of 2022. And in both years he didn’t win it, Ogier finished second.
Takamoto Katsuta
Takamoto Katsuta has never won a WRC event, so this one is based on the most podiums he’s had on one particular rally. Quite famously, that event is Safari Rally Kenya.
Each and every year the Toyota driver has been to Africa, he’s performed well.
In 2021 he secured his first ever WRC podium – and even led the rally briefly on the final morning – before he picked up another podium a year later. That it was a disappointment to finish fourth this year is testament to Katsuta’s Safari ability.
The only other podium of his WRC career so far has come at home in Japan.
Thierry Neuville
Victory in Sardinia earlier this season helped ensure it is now, without contest, the event Thierry Neuville has achieved the most WRC success on.
The win in 2023 was the Belgian’s third on the Mediterranean island following an important success in 2016 – Neuville’s first WRC win on gravel – and then a swashbuckling success over Ogier in 2018 where Neuville pipped him on the final stage.
The Hyundai driver has won several events twice, including Argentina and Spain.
Esapekka Lappi
As a one-time WRC winner, it’s no surprise to learn that Esapekka Lappi’s most successful event is his home one: Rally Finland.
Incredibly, Lappi’s victory on local soil was six years ago now, but it still stands as the only time to date he’s made the WRC’s top step.
Oh how he’d love to add a second next week.
Finland is also where Lappi is most frequently on the WRC podium, having come second in 2019 and third in 2022.
Dani Sordo
Once known as a bit of a specialist on asphalt, Dani Sordo has since shaken that label and his most successful WRC event is of course a gravel one.
Rally Italy Sardinia.
A shock win in 2019, stolen from Ott Tänak whose steering jammed on the powerstage, earned Sordo his first Italian win and only his second in total at rallying’s top level.
A year later he maximized his low starting position to lead from the front and keep a charging Neuville and Ogier at bay.
Teemu Suninen
Another Hyundai employee, another to count Sardinia as their most successful WRC event.
For Teemu Suninen it’s less clear-cut. The Finn has never won a world championship rally, so like Katsuta this is based on podiums.
But unlike Katsuta, Suninen has never scored a podium at an event more than once. He has three WRC podiums, claimed in México, Portugal and Sardinia.
However Sardinia stands as his most successful as Suninen finished second there in 2019 for M-Sport, but was third when he podiumed in México and Portugal.
Ott Tänak
Ott Tänak has won two different WRC events thrice in his career, and the first is Rally Germany which he impressively won three years in a row from 2017 to ’19.
But Rally Finland qualifies as the 2019 world champion’s most successful event as he has claimed podium finishes there beyond standing on the top step.
Tänak’s first Finland win came in 2018 in Toyota’s Yaris WRC, which he also drove to success in 2019 en route to his first and currently only title.
But arguably his most impressive win of his career, let alone in Finland, was in 2022 when he drove through his Hyundai’s limitations to defeat Rovanperä in a thrilling contest.
Pierre-Louis Loubet
With no WRC victories or even podiums yet, deciphering Pierre-Louis Loubet’s most successful event is tricky.
But like three of his rivals in the service park, Sardinia has been the setting for Loubet’s best results.
His best WRC finishing position to date is fourth, which he has claimed in both Sardinia and on the Acropolis Rally, but the rest of Loubet’s Italian results are marginally better than his Greek ones.
