Not even Rovanperä’s first single-seater podium at the weekend could steal the attention of the rallying world from the man who stepped into the Finn’s Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 this year, and immediately put it on the top step of the podium.
If Oliver Solberg announced himself to the world as a frontrunning talent in Estonia, was this the weekend he truly outlined his world champion credentials?
Here’s what we learned from the Monte Carlo Rally 2026:
Solberg’s got to be a title threat
Jari-Matti Latvala expected his new signing to win rallies in 2026. He didn’t expect him to win the Monte.
Latvala equally felt Solberg would benefit from a full season before being able to challenge for the title in 2027. Who’s to say he wasn’t slightly pessimistic with that prediction as well?
We can’t get overly excited by two results… but this trajectory from Oliver Solberg is looking rather ominous. He’s undefeated behind the wheel of a Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 in the World Rally Championship. He beat Sébastien Ogier by over two minutes on the rally he’s won more than any other!
Undoubtedly, there are still tests to come – running first on the road in Sweden next month is just one of them – so whether he has what it takes to be world champion this year we are yet to see.
But at the very least there can no longer be any debate over whether he’s a contender for it or not, because a driver capable of what Solberg achieved last weekend is a driver who has the potential to go all the way.
Evans delivers on his promise
Analyzing the four points he lost to Ogier in 2025, Elfyn Evans came to the realization that he let Ogier off the hook too easily at the start of the season (specifically Monte Carlo and Rally Islas Canarias) when he wasn’t viewing his Toyota team-mate as a world championship rival.
He wouldn’t make that mistake again, he said. And true to his word, he didn’t.
That’s the true irony in Evans’ Monte Carlo result. For the first time in 14 months (since Rally Japan 2024) he beat Ogier in a straight fight, yet he still came second.
Evans’ performance in Monte was good; Solberg’s was just better. But the Welshman maximized Super Sunday (we can’t hold Yoahn Rossel’s Sunday score against him given his lower road position and better road conditions) to head to Sweden just four points behind his team-mate.
Game very much on.
Lancia’s debut proves inconclusive
What we knew about the Lancia’s comeback to the World Rally Championship before last week was it was doing so with a very sensible driver lineup.
Yohan Rossel and Nikolay Gryazin have both been at the sharp end of WRC2 for years, and especially in Monte Carlo have shown superb performances (Rossel winning the past three years in a Citroën).
What we unfortunately didn’t learn during the Monte was the true capability of the Ypsilon Rally2 HF Integrale.
That wasn’t Lancia’s fault, mainly the insane snow, ice, slush, fog and occasional dry Tarmac this year’s Monte presented – although Rossel didn’t help the cause with his exit on SS1.
That he returned and incredibly won Super Sunday is fantastic PR but, again, doesn’t tell us much given his lower start position gave him a cleaner road. We’ll need to wait until later in the season (likely Croatia) to truly understand how quick the Ypsilson is versus the Toyota and Škoda especially.
Armstrong shows promise
Knowing what to expect of Jon Armstrong in Monte Carlo was incredibly difficult given he’d never done the rally before, let alone compete in Rally1. That’s OK, because he didn’t know what to expect from himself, either.
But I’m prepared to wager he didn’t envisage being third overall after two stages after setting a top-three stage time!
The treacherous conditions this year would ultimately prove the M-Sport driver’s undoing as he was caught on black ice and broke his suspension on the second-to-last stage, but earlier in the rally it provided him a platform to shine – and he took it.
The fact he was unable to convert a top-six finish is a disappointment, but it was Armstrong who looked the more seasoned WRC driver in Monte rather than team-mate Josh McErlean who slid off twice before crashing out for good on Sunday.
The 31-year-old has given himself a strong base to build from for the rest of 2026.
Paddon parks his demons
If you didn’t watch the Monte Carlo Rally and only looked at the result, you’d be justified in questioning what on earth Hayden Paddon was doing, finishing almost 19 minutes off the lead and behind four Rally2 cars.
But there are three extremely important bits of context to consider:
1) Paddon had just one day of testing in the i20 N Rally1, plus a few runs at a media day.
2) Hyundai sporting director Andrew Wheatley made it very clear the team wasn’t expecting performance from Paddon: “We know that Hayden can drive, that’s not the point. I don’t want him to drive at 100% of his own ability this weekend, that’s not his job,” he said on Wednesday.
3) Most importantly: the last time Paddon contested the Monte in 2017, an accident on the first stage tragically claimed the life of a spectator.
View his performance through that lens, and Paddon did a remarkable job. Just being there at the start (and the finish) was all he had to do, and completing the mission puts some trauma to bed.
“I feel like I don’t have to fear Monte now,” he said. “I feel like I can just get on with life and enjoy the opportunity we’ve got.”
His performance will be much stronger when he returns to competition (which is expected to be in Croatia).
Hyundai’s Tarmac issues persist
Hyundai technical director François-Xavier Demaison came into 2026 confident the team could be more of a “pain in the a**” for Toyota.
That quest got off to a slow start in Monte Carlo as Toyota claimed the first 1-2-3 at this famous event since Volkswagen in 2015, winning 13 of the event’s 17 stages to Hyundai’s two.
The “black beast” (in Adrien Fourmaux’s words) of the i20 N Rally1 ‘evo’ is Tarmac, and it continued to haunt Hyundai last weekend. Thierry Neuville said he would only drive hard if he had the right feeling, and that feeling never came across the weekend.
But both he and Fourmaux are confident things will be far better in Sweden. For the sake of the championship let’s keep our fingers and toes crossed that they’re correct, because we don’t want another title walkover like Toyota’s 2025.
Ogier finally bested at the Monte
Remarkably, 2026 was Sébastien Ogier’s worst top-class WRC result at the Monte Carlo Rally – and he still finished third!
He’s right to be proud of his record at this event: 10 wins and 15 podiums in 17 starts. But given Ogier was the overwhelming favorite to win, it was a surprise to see him beaten by two of his team-mates.
Had the conditions been more stable, who knows what might have happened? But a combination of Solberg’s innate feel on the ice, running earlier on the road being a slight disadvantage and Ogier finding zero confidence in the tires beneath him led to the nine-time champion backing off at points.
In reality, the rally was over for everyone after SS2. Solberg pulling out over 30s on the rest proved just too big a gain for any of his rivals to erode. Ogier lost a minute, and from there would’ve known the ultimate risks just no longer made sense.
