Croatia might be a new addition for the 2026 World Rally Championship compared to 2025, but it’s not a new challenge having featured from 2021-24.
Yet, the stages the drivers will tackle this week are actually quite different.
Friday and Sunday’s legs of Croatia are brand-new to the WRC, with a new test also joining Saturday’s loop of tradtional four.
Not only does that offer crews a fresh challenge on the recce with brand-new pacenotes to write, it’s created a different feel to the event itself.
“Yeah to be fair it’s not so much Croatia style,” Hyundai driver Adrien Fourmaux told DirtFish.
“In some stages it feels a bit like Canarias and Corsica. It’s beautiful but it’s a bit different than what we used to run. It’s a challenge, it’s new stages and it’s always good to have new stages in the championship.”
Oliver Solberg concurred.
Racy stages feature on Friday, with gravel (rather than mud) polluting the stages after each car
“I like it,” he smiled. “I mean the newer, the better. I think especially when it’s first [my] time with the Toyota on all these type of roads I think it’s almost better if it’s new because then everyone’s a little bit more on an even playing field. So for me, it’s good.”
Pollution is likely to be a factor, especially on Friday, offering an advantage to those further up the running order. Like Solberg; like championship-leader Elfyn Evans.
“It’s quite different obviously,” Evans said of the new stages. “I would say the stages are probably a bit faster, a bit more flowing, generally a bit more clean but there are still some very dirty parts still.”
Mud being pulled onto the line has traditionally been a factor in Croatia, but not this year. Instead, says WRC2 contender Andreas Mikkelsen, it’ll be gravel and stones.
“Even though Saturday is similar Friday is completely new, [and] Sunday is completely new,” commented the Škoda pilot .”It’s more racy I would say, this year, but still a lot of pollution can be pulled. But I don’t think it’ll be mud, it can be gravel stuff so it should be a little bit of a different challenge. More racy.”
Hayden Paddon has a different view on the stages to most, as he’s never competed here before. He’s therefore less sensitive to the itinerary changes, but fears they won’t work in his favor on the opening day.
“[They’re] cool stages,” he said. “Friday’s quite fast and technical but there’s going to be a lot of pollution, a lot of gravel can come out onto the stages so that’s obviously not going to help us one day one.
“But come day two hopefully we can play our game of chess and get a little bit of time back on the second day. It’ll be playing a bit of a long game.”
The final factor could be the weather, as defending Croatia Rally winner (from the ERC) Jon Armstrong teased.
“Some interesting conditions,” said the M-Sport man. “You have a little bit of snow at the side of the roads, especially on Saturday’s stages, but we’ll see . There might be a little chance of snow on Friday to go onto the Saturday stages, so we’ll see what happens.”
Whatever happens, Toyota’s Sami Pajari believes one particular skillset will pay dividends.
“The stages look really, really enjoyable,” he mused. “Maybe you need some balls in there, I would say!”
