Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin have won the 2026 World Rally Championship drivers’ and co-drivers’ titles in a final-kilometer thriller, with Oliver Solberg crashing two corners from the finish of the powerstage while on track to beat Evans to the championship.
Heading into the final stage the two contenders were effectively a point apart in the title race: Solberg was leading the rally with Evans fifth, and Solberg was top of the Super Sunday standings with Evans set to score nothing having stopped to change a puncture on the penultimate stage. Whoever went fastest on the powerstage between the pair would settle the championship outcome.
Evans had effectively conceded the title after his powerstage run, admitting he “overdrove” on the Sassari test. Alarm bells started ringing when Sami Pajari, two cars after Evans, went 2.2s faster, suggesting running higher up the road was not going to be an advantage in the rutted and sandy powerstage.
Solberg put the hammer down and was fastest of anyone at the first split and, though he couldn’t match Thierry Neuville’s pace, was 1.9s up on Evans with only 1.2 kilometres to go.
The Sassari-Argentiera stage had decided rally wins by tenths of a second. This time it decided a world champion two corners from the finish.
But his last-minute attempt to snatch the world title away from Evans fell apart with only two corners to go: he oversteered on a left-hander along the now-iconic Argentiera coastline and swung hard the other way, flying off the road and into the dunes with only two turns before the finish line.
Though Solberg returned to the road and finished to clinch the rally victory by 57.6s over Sébastien Ogier, he finished the powerstage nine seconds behind Evans to send the world championship the way of the Welshman.
“I don’t think it’s quite sunk in yet,” said Evans. “I was quite sure that was over. I didn’t drive the best stage, I threw everything at it but it wasn’t clean.
“I feel for Oliver as well, he did an incredible weekend. I’m sorry for him to lose it so close to the finish. But we have al to of people to thank for backing me over the years, Scotty for an incredible job.”
An inconsolable Solberg sat in his car at the finish line, having come only a few hundred meters away from becoming world champion and crashing literally within sight of the finish line. He had to be encouraged to take to the powerstage podium by team principal Jari-Matti Latvala and Ogier, struggling to hold in emotion as the Swedish national anthem rang out despite falling short of his ultimate goal.
For 16 stages Evans had no answer for Solberg's push to steal the title. Evans thought it had lost it after his own powerstage run – then with only a few seconds to go until the finish of the season, the title turned back in his favour
Ogier had taken a relaxed approach to the final day on his way to second place, keeping his car in the middle of the road and avoiding punctures to wrap up a comfortable podium finish 39.8s ahead of the third and final title contender coming into the rally, Sami Pajari.
“I gave absolutely everything on that last stage,” said Pajari, clocking the second-fastest powerstage time and winning Super Sunday after Solberg’s mistake. Pajari finishes the year third in the standings, one point behind Solberg.
Adrien Fourmaux had hoped to contend for a first WRC win in Sardinia and was at the front on the opening day – but two punctures in two days ended his hopes of silverware. He finished the rally fourth overall, well adrift of the top three Toyotas. Evans, celebrating his last-gasp world title win, completed the top five ahead of Takamoto Katsuta in sixth.
There was also a thrilling climax to the final WRC2 battle of the season: Roope Korhonen fended off Robert Virves by only 0.7s to win the second-tier category, the pair eighth and ninth overall.
After a torrid run of poor finishes M-Sport’s Jon Armstrong clinched a career-best seventh place finish.
Neuville secured a small consolation prize for Hyundai at the end of the rally
Neuville had fought Solberg for the lead until Saturday afternoon, when he ripped the left-rear wheel off his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 by clattering into a tree on the Lerno test.
Having been involved in both of Hyundai’s manufacturers’ world titles, scoring a drivers’ title of his own and 23 victories for the Korean marque, it was fitting that he signed off the Rally1 era with a powerstage win to end the i20 N Rally1’s competitive career.
“I don’t know what to say, honestly,” said Neuville. “Super disappointed for the weekend but generally I’m also delighted it’s over now.”
Mārtinš Sesks suffered a somewhat miserable weekend, retiring midway through Saturday with damaged steering. He returned to finish inside the top 20 overall on the final day.
Josh McErlean finished well down the order, having retired from sixth place with a water leak on Saturday afternoon. He returned on Sunday with a five-minute penalty for using an engine not part of his car’s two-unit allocation of sealed motors, lost over 20 minutes with a stop to clear smoke from his Ford Puma on Sunday’s opening test but brought his car to the finish regardless.
“What a machine,” said McErlean, paying tribute to the outgoing Rally1 machine underneath him. “They’re going to be sorely missed.”
