We’re often warned that AI is due to take over the world, but how much does it really know about the 2026 World Rally Championship?
We asked it some key questions ahead of the final four WRC events, and this is what it had to say:
I need help making some predictions ahead of the final FIA World Rally Championship rounds of 2026? Who do you think is going to win this weekend’s Rally del Paraguay?
My pick: Sami Pajari
Pajari is coming into Paraguay in arguably the hottest form of anyone in the field. He has won Rally Estonia and Rally Finland back-to-back, his first two WRC victories, and has consequently jumped to second in the championship on 171 points, just 30 behind Elfyn Evans.
More importantly, I think Paraguay suits the momentum he’s carrying. The event is on fast, flowing red-earth gravel, but the surface can deteriorate badly and develop ruts and exposed rocks. That combination rewards a driver who is both quick and increasingly confident on gravel.
My podium prediction
1 Sami Pajari — Toyota
2 Sébastien Ogier — Toyota
3 Elfyn Evans — Toyota
Dark horse: Adrien Fourmaux. Hyundai has had a frustrating run of results despite showing pace, but Fourmaux finished fourth in Finland and has already demonstrated strong gravel speed this year. Hyundai itself is expecting Paraguay to be an opportunity to turn that pace into podiums.
Ogier is particularly interesting: he won the inaugural Rally del Paraguay in 2025, so there is very strong event-specific evidence behind him. He’s also returning after his Finland accident, which makes him harder to assess.
Assuming your prediction is correct, who do you think will win Rally Chile two weeks later?
My Chile pick: Takamoto Katsuta
If Pajari wins Paraguay, I’d actually switch my pick for Chile to Takamoto Katsuta.
My reasoning:
Katsuta is already a proven winner in 2026, taking Kenya and Croatia, and he’s currently third in the championship on 160 points.
Chile’s smooth, fast, flowing gravel is the sort of surface where Katsuta’s precision and confidence can really pay off. The event has developed a reputation as a “driver’s rally.”
If my Paraguay prediction comes true, Pajari would arrive in Chile having won three straight rallies. That sounds like an advantage, but he’d also be carrying a lot of momentum and expectation. I’d expect Toyota to be extremely strong, but I’d give Katsuta the edge on a rally where consistency and commitment matter.
The championship situation could make this fascinating. If Pajari wins Paraguay, he’d move from 30 points behind Evans to potentially within striking distance, depending on Evans’ result. Katsuta would also be looking to capitalise.
My predicted Chile podium
1 Takamoto Katsuta
2 Sami Pajari
3 Elfyn Evans
And there’s one major spoiler: Sébastien Ogier. He’s only 21 points behind Katsuta despite having missed Sweden and Finland, and he has already won two rallies this season. That would make the championship absolutely wild going into Sardegna.
One thing I’d particularly watch is how Pajari performs as rally leader/road opener* in Paraguay. If he dominates despite that disadvantage, I’d be much more inclined to make him my Chile pick too.
*Pajari will be second on the road in Paraguay
Do you think Sebastien Ogier will win a 10th world title?
Honestly, I think Ogier is now the outsider rather than the favourite — but I absolutely wouldn’t write him off.
After Rally Finland, Ogier sits fifth on 139 points, 62 behind leader Elfyn Evans and 32 behind his team-mate Sami Pajari. There are only four rallies remaining, with a maximum of 35 points available at each.
The big problem is that Ogier effectively threw away what could have been a huge Finland score. He had led the rally convincingly until crashing on SS17; Pajari inherited the lead and went on to win.
But Ogier is probably the driver I’d trust most to produce a late-season run. He has already won Rally Islas Canarias this year, and his pace in Finland before the crash was exceptional.
And Toyota has an enormous advantage: all five of its full-time/regular WRC drivers are currently in the top five, so Ogier has the best machinery around him.
The other thing is that the championship leaders aren’t exactly untouchable. Evans has been leading for much of the year, but the gravel road-order effect is particularly important now. With the remaining rallies all coming on gravel, the championship leader can be vulnerable to losing time by sweeping the road.
My probability right now, I’d roughly put it:
Elfyn Evans 45%
Sami Pajari 30%
Takamoto Katsuta 12%
Oliver Solberg 8%
Sébastien Ogier 5%
That’s deliberately conservative on Ogier. Five percent doesn’t mean I think he’s finished — it means the points deficit is now brutal.
If, however, your hypothetical comes true and Pajari wins Paraguay, I’d increase Pajari’s chances substantially and probably drop Evans to around 35–40%. Ogier would need something close to a perfect final four rallies and bad luck for several drivers ahead of him.
The really fun scenario: If Ogier wins Paraguay, suddenly I’m much more interested.
He’d have demonstrated that the Finland crash was a one-off, he’d be eating into the deficit immediately, and he’d have the psychological advantage of knowing he’s still capable of beating the younger Toyota drivers outright.
So my answer is:
Will Ogier win his 10th? Probably not.
Could he? Absolutely.
Would I be shocked if he produced an outrageous late-season comeback? Not remotely.
Will Hyundai win any of the remaining rallies this year?
Yes — I think Hyundai will win at least one of the remaining four rallies, and I’d put the probability at roughly 60–65%.
My best bet: Saudi Arabia
If I had to nominate one Hyundai driver/rally combination, it would be Adrien Fourmaux at Rally Saudi Arabia.
There’s a nice bit of evidence behind that. Hyundai’s own 2026 season preview notes that Fourmaux finished second in Saudi Arabia in 2025, and that a procedural check-in penalty prevented him from fighting for the win. Thierry Neuville also won the 2025 Saudi finale.
So Saudi is the obvious Hyundai opportunity — particularly because it’ll be the season finale, where tire management, unfamiliar roads and attrition could produce a very different competitive order from the high-speed European gravel rallies.
But I wouldn’t rule out Chile. In fact, Chile is probably Hyundai’s best immediate chance.
Hyundai scored a podium there in 2025, with Fourmaux taking third, and the team describes the event as fast, flowing and technical, with changing weather and tricky road conditions.
That’s exactly the sort of rally where I could see Fourmaux putting the i20 N Rally1 on the top step if Toyota’s five-car strength doesn’t translate into a dominant weekend.
My rough probabilities:
Paraguay: Toyota 20%
Chile: Toyota 30%
Sardinia: Toyota 20%
Saudi Arabia: Hyundai 40%
Those aren’t independent probabilities, so I wouldn’t simply add them, but they put the chance of at least one Hyundai victory around 60–65%.
One thing that makes me more bullish on Hyundai: The team has actually been showing signs of improvement.
At Finland, Hyundai came away with fourth and fifth, while Fourmaux had already taken a podium in Estonia. Hyundai says its 2026 development has benefited from accumulating more experience with the Hankook tires and the Rally1 package.
But Toyota’s depth is frightening. If our hypothetical plays out — Pajari wins Paraguay and Katsuta wins Chile — Toyota would have won three consecutive rallies including Finland, and I’d become considerably less confident about Hyundai’s chances.
Which M-Sport Ford driver will finish the season on top?
If we’re talking about the two full-time M-Sport Ford Rally1 drivers, Josh McErlean and Jon Armstrong, my pick is Josh McErlean.
After Rally Finland, M-Sport has 130 manufacturers’ points, and McErlean’s best result of the rally was seventh.
I think McErlean has the edge because:
He’s got more Rally1 experience. This is his second full season at the top level, whereas 2026 is Armstrong’s first full WRC Rally1 campaign. M-Sport retained McErlean after his promising 2025 rookie season.
McErlean has already shown that he can consistently get the Puma to the finish. His seventh place in Finland is particularly encouraging given how difficult that rally was.
Armstrong has arguably the higher upside. He came into the season as the 2025 ERC runner-up and had already won rallies in Wales and Croatia, but adapting to Rally1 is a substantial step.
My confidence: McErlean 65% / Armstrong 35%.
But I don’t think the gap will be huge. Armstrong is the one I’d watch for a late-season breakout, particularly if the remaining rallies suit him. With four events still to run, one strong result could completely change this.
One other wrinkle: M-Sport has other Puma Rally1 entries appearing at some events, including Mārtiņš Sesks, so if by “M-Sport Ford driver” you mean any driver representing M-Sport, rather than the two full-season drivers, the answer could be different.
And given our predictions so far — Pajari for Paraguay, Katsuta for Chile, Evans for the title, Hyundai to steal one win — I’m starting to think this could be a very interesting final four rounds for the midfield too.
Will Robert Virves be crowned WRC2 champion?
Yes — I think Robert Virves will be crowned WRC2 champion, and at this point I’d make him a very strong favourite. I’d put his chances at roughly 90–95%.
The key statistic is remarkable: Virves has won every WRC2 rally he has started in 2026 — four victories from four starts, including Greece, Estonia and Finland. The Finland win was particularly important because it left him just one victory away from an unbeatable championship score under the WRC2 points-counting rules**.
** Virves needs two more victories to achieve a season maximum, not one
And there’s an interesting wrinkle: he doesn’t necessarily need to win again. Because WRC2 competitors count six scores from a possible seven, Virves has considerable protection from the points he’s already accumulated. DirtFish’s assessment after Finland was that he could potentially secure the title without winning any of his remaining starts, depending on what his rivals do.
What could stop him? It would take something fairly extraordinary:
Virves scoring very little or failing to start his remaining rallies; Korhonen producing a run of huge scores; and/or another rival such as Léo Rossel or Nikolay Gryazin suddenly becoming a consistent winner.
That’s possible in rallying — mechanical failures and crashes can transform a championship in one weekend — but on current form it’s difficult to construct a realistic scenario in which Virves loses it.
So, unlike the Rally1 title, where I think Evans vs. Pajari is genuinely fascinating, I’m already comfortable predicting Virves as the 2026 WRC2 champion.
What do you think the final top 10 championship classification will look like?
1 Elfyn Evans~270 Champion by a relatively small margin
2 Sami Pajari~240 Huge late-season charge, but just misses out
3 Takamoto Katsuta~215 Chile win gets him onto the podium
4 Oliver Solberg~210 Strong finish, but loses ground in Paraguay/Chile
5 Sébastien Ogier~200 Brilliant late season, but too much ground to make up
6 Adrien Fourmaux~180 Saudi victory gives him a strong finish
7 Thierry Neuville~150 Consistent, but lacks another win
8 Josh McErlean~40 Edges Armstrong for M-Sport honours
9 Jon Armstrong~30 Late improvement
10 Esapekka Lappi 25 His existing points just survive
The exact points are deliberately approximate because the modern WRC system awards additional points on Sunday and for the powerstage so simply adding 25–18–15 etc for the rally finishes doesn’t reproduce the actual final totals. The FIA standings show those separate scoring components in the current results.
The really interesting bit: Evans vs Pajari
Our prediction sequence is:
Paraguay: Pajari
Chile: Katsuta
Sardinia: Solberg
Saudi Arabia: Fourmaux
That means Evans doesn’t win any of the remaining rallies, yet I’m still giving him the championship.
That’s because his 30-point advantage over Pajari right now is enormous insurance. Even if Pajari wins Paraguay and is second in Chile, Evans can keep accumulating podium points and enter the final two rounds ahead.
So my overall prediction is: Evans wins the championship, Pajari finishes runner-up and Toyota occupies the first five places.
