Thrill-a-minute just about sums up Rally Sweden in 2025.
A titanic battle at the front that wasn’t settled until the final stage stole the show, but who were the best performers throughout the Rally1 field?
These are DirtFish’s driver rankings from Rally Sweden.
10 Grégoire Munster
Munster was upfront before the rally even began that a repeat of his Monte Carlo magic was unlikely in Sweden.
But the M-Sport man’s event never really got going. A really poor first stage on Friday ruined his weekend from the off as he was then left with the worst road position thereafter.
No accidents though; that was a plus.
9 Kalle Rovanperä
Not the sort of performance you expect from a driver of Rovanperä’s quality.
Precisely the same as Monte Carlo – no feeling or faith with the Hankook tires, and some car setup struggles to boot as he tried to combat it.
Kenya needs to go better before this becomes the new norm.
8 Adrien Fourmaux
A rally of two halves.
An incredibly impressive Friday, less so on Saturday and Sunday was then almost irrelevant as a result of the off into a snowbank.
He felt he paid a high price for a small mistake – and it’s hard to disagree. But ultimately the trip into the snowbank, and leaving his helmet unfastened, were two avoidable errors.
7 Sami Pajari
Never really got to show the best of himself after a tire was knocked off the rim on Friday’s first stage.
That’s a shame, because the pace was good. But Pajari was outshone by fellow youngster Mãrtinş Sesks.
6 Josh McErlean
“I was surprised by the speed,” McErlean told us. “I’m not sure what everyone else’s expectation was.”
Not for him to be setting genuinely competitive stage times and beating world champions on certain tests, that’s for sure.
A big step forward speed-wise from Monte, although he did make a mistake. He and the spectators did remarkably well to free the beached Puma though.
5 Thierry Neuville
A much, much better performance from the world champion than Monte Carlo, but still not perfect.
Handling imperfections spoiled his Friday, but Neuville came alive on Saturday to vault himself into contention.
But he couldn’t live with the Toyotas on the final day.
4 Ott Tänak
It was tough to split the two Hyundais, but Tänak nips ahead here despite finishing behind.
That’s mainly because he was right there with the two leading Toyotas before a mysterious leak occurred on Saturday and forced Tänak into a safe engine mode for the afternoon.
3 Mãrtinş Sesks
Defied expectations, and looked like somebody who’d been doing this for years.
Words that could’ve been used for Sesks in Poland and Latvia last year, but also in Sweden.
Obviously this was far less emphatic a performance, but no less impressive given Sesks was on the back foot in nearly all respects. Yet he still set a couple of top-three times and finished as comfortably the best, and fastest, Ford.
2 Takamoto Katsuta
If Elfyn Evans hadn’t been quite so brilliant, Katsuta could easily have been given #1 here.
The pace was perfectly judged, and the risks expertly managed, as Katsuta got closer to a maiden WRC win than ever before.
If the only disappointment is that he didn’t win, it was clearly a good weekend.
1 Elfyn Evans
Not just the best drive of the weekend, quite possibly the best drive of Evans’ career.
He was the boss in Sweden, it’s as simple as that.
Heading into the six-week break he holds a mammoth 28-point lead – and that’s over part-timer Sébastien Ogier!
And you cannot say it’s not utterly deserved.
