r/WRC • u/Michal_Baranowski Toyota Gazoo Racing • 12d ago
MEGATHREAD / Community Post WRC 2026 Post-season Discussion Thread
2026 World Rally Championship is now behind us. Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin became world champions in the most dramatic circumstances you could imagine. Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT secured their title one rally prior in Chile, once again in a dominant fashion.
What are your thoughts about this season? Who in your mind was the best driver of the year? Which performance this season impressed you the most? Which rally was your favourite? Who surprised you positively and who negatively? Also you can bring to the discussion aspects I haven't mentioned.
Share your views.
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u/Oj1055 12d ago
This whole season just made me wonder what Fourmaux could have done in a Toyota. Just hoping we get to see him next year
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u/virtron 12d ago
...or even on better tires. It would be such a shame for him to not get a seat next year
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u/kfifigidifkg 12d ago
I’d be pretty surprised if he’s not at M-Sport. He’s the only guy of the level that would be capable of fighting for the championship that they’d be able to get.
If Ford aren’t willing to put their hand in their pocket to sign him, I’d have serious concerns about their commitment to the project.
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u/Kilgores4 #16 Adrien Fourmaux 12d ago
I’m probably biased, but I think with a bit of lack and the superior car that Toyota had over Hyundai he would have been in the race for the title.. Let’s hope from 2028 he will get his chance, but I would not count him out of the race next year if he goes with a kit car..
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u/Michal_Baranowski Toyota Gazoo Racing 12d ago
2026 season was pretty interesting. As many predicted it would be worse than 2025, it wasn't so bad. Championship fight going down to the wire, title decider which would be remembered for years and even decades to come, first time winners and champions.
Although I understand those who are unhappy with another season of Toyota unstoppable domination. Can't blame you, this sport needs more competition at the top level that isn't another Toyota driver. Hopefully with Ford coming back, that's soon becoming a reality. At least it's great that Toyota actively allow their drivers to fight without team orders chicanery.
Delighted with Elfyn Evans that the finally broke the mold and after five runner-up finishes, at the sixth time of asking he became world champion. Although with two corners to go it was almost unlikely to happen, it did happen. Evans once again had to deal with road sweeper role practically all year long, but experience paid off this time around. Still, I believe that 2025 season was a better one by Elfyn. Either way, in the great picture, it's great that he finally did it. His consistency, work ethic, attitude, dedication, perseverance and maturity finally brought him to a happy ending.
Oliver Solberg couldn't lose the championship in a more dramatic circumstances. Considering his whole season, like he said, he should be thankful that he even got to have such chance. Sensational win in Monte Carlo in a convincing style was followed by a dreary run of terrible rallies filled with his own unforced errors. Things improved from Estonia onwards, this where his comeback began. His pace this year was exceptional, tied with most wins, most stages win, most Sunday points, but to be a champion Solberg will need to find more consistency. Speed is there, just needs to polish his talent a bit. Still, Oliver has come a long way since being booted out of Hyundai in 2022.
Sami Pajari is definitely the breakthrough of the year. Who knew that after disappointing Monte Carlo, Sami would improve so much. 9 podiums, 3 wins in a row, practically no errors, by far the most consistent driver of the year. Under older points system, Sami would have been world champion this year... That tells you a lot about his year. He impressed me the most this season. I really hope that his meteoric rise continues. Third in the championship is still so much more than anyone could expect from him before this season.
Outgoing world champion Sebastien Ogier just couldn't go for the tenth this year. It wasn't a perfect season like in 2025, small errors, being outpaced in some events, bad luck in Portugal, massive crash in Finland that terrified a lot of us here. Considering what Ogier was saying, his so-called "part-time" involvements may actually become more part-time this time around in 2027, since he probably won't even do Monte Carlo. We should still see Seb in the future though.
Takamoto Katsuta stunned us all in the early parts of the year. Second in Sweden maybe wasn't that of a shock, but his maiden win in Safari was. Then he was gifted another one in Croatia. Leading championship soon after that, however since that moment his season has gone in a bad way. Struggling with road sweeping role, then series of bad rallies in the South America. Shame, because definitely that was his greatest year in WRC. Maybe we will see something nice from Taka in the future.
Onto Hyundai. Another year of frustrations. Outgunned and outnumbered. Brand itself focusing more on WEC, WRC team feeling like an afterthought. Just a single win this year in Portugal and plenty of missed opportunities. There were very few positives about them this year. Adrien Fourmaux being one of them. Outscoring and outperforming Thierry Neuville for the most part. So gutting that Fourmaux was robbed of so many good results this year thanks to galore of problems. Coming oh so close to maybe his maiden win, but then being brutally stripped of that chance. It feels insane that he actually may struggle to have a top tier seat next year considering his pace...
Thierry Neuville had a very troubled season. One solitary win, but many rallies with issues. Also, that super dramatic finish in Croatia where lost the victory on the very final stage. Crash in Chile was so violent, reminiscent of his 2019 accident. I don't know what the future holds for him now. At least the last chapter of the year - power stage at Sardegna was a glipse of good old Thierry, pushing to the max.
Part-timers at Hyundai with mixed fortunes. Hayden Paddon came back to top tier rallying after 8 years and delivered more than Lappi and Sordo - two podiums. The one in Paraguay was such a great performance. Great to know that Hayden still has steam in him. Watching Lappi on the other hand felt like a sad farewell to a dying career. EP looking like out of his comfort zone, struggling to find any decent pace and not knowing the reason. Words like that team should have brought Paddon to Chile instead of him were more than telling - Lappi's time in WRC is over. He is done with professional rallying at all after this year. Sad end to a career that promised so much more. Dani maybe will be encouraged by RMC next year, but that remains to be seen.
Will we see Hyundai next year? Their indecisiveness is almost sickening. They should make up their mind already. If they are gone for good, then they left the sport in a very disappointing, yet very Hyundai-like way considering last two seasons.
The best news about M-Sport came at the very last round when Ford announced their full-time comeback to the sport in 2028. Great news for the sport and M-Sport in general. Days of misery are counted. This year however still was a misery. Car was neither fast or reliable. At Monte Carlo, M-Sport ended their 24-year old streak of classified finishes when all of their drivers crashed out. Their nominal full-season drivers were like ying and yang. Josh McErlean was unimpressive with his pace, however in the second half of the season he found consistency, sixth place in Greece being an eye-catching performance by Josh. Jon Armstrong was the faster one of that duo for the most part, but his season was plagued with errors and incidents, just four finishes in the top 10. Martins Sesks also came back for a part-time run, but he was equally mixed fortunate, pace-wise doing usually better than both Irish drivers at M-Sport.
Rally of the year? Sardegna, no question. Amount of dramas, tension and drama of the championship fight, atmosphere, on-stage action, last rally for current Rally1 machines... Every ingredient was there.
Disappointment of the season? I was thinking about this for a longer while and I came to a conclusion that neither team or driver should be awarded this. My personal pick for that dubious award is unfortunately Hankook. Their tyres caused too much randomness. Amount of punctures dictacting rallies, outcomes, ruining good results for many. And this has been Hankook's second year in this championship, sadly I witness a deja vu from Pirelli days. 2027 will be a make or break year for them, especially if their contract with WRC runs out after next season. If they can't deliver more predictable tyres, then maybe it would be better not to extend it.
Kudos to Robert Virves for winning WRC2 title in a pretty convincing fashion. Would like to see him getting a top class opportunity at any capacity. Will he have it? That's debatable. Seems like lack of good seats is now quite a problem in WRC, another reasons why we need more manufacturers in the top class.
So much was said about outgoing Rally1 machines. Delighted that they gave us so much speed, fast fly-bys, excitement. It was a pleasure to witness them in action and competition for the last time.
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u/camefromthesouthside 11d ago edited 11d ago
What. A. Season.
From Oliver's Monte win (where he went off-road again and still won, mind you),
to that insane muddy safari rally which gave us images like of the old days Celica's plowing through thick mud and Taka's emotional win,
to Thierry's last minute crash in Croatia and eventual emotional win in Portugal,
to Adrien's insane speed, all be his terrible luck with punctures,
to Sami's incredible performance, 9 podiums and three wins leading him to a title chance,
all the way to this INSANE final in Sardegna and Oliver going 200% balls to the wall Mcrae style, to lose the title in the penultimate corner
and for Elfyn to finally break his runner up streak and lift the trophy thanks to his consistency,
To the end of, imo, the greatest cars of the modern era.
Best sport - in the world.
edit: have to shoutout Paddon's return to form. Great to see.
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u/Past_Conference_2889 12d ago
I thought honestly he’s going to bottle it, in fact around mid season I was expecting Ogier to bounce back and start winning.
Never did I expect these three to fight for the title til the very last round, nevermind this crazy ending.
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u/Tordoff-600 Ott Tänak 12d ago
Bring back Michelin or Pirelli. I can't be Hankooked anymore. Croatia and Sardegna were the highlights of the tyres being unstable and result costing.
Best driver for me this season (WRC): Pajari
Best driver for me this season (WRC2): Virves
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u/SwooshRoc 12d ago
I think Pirelli is a bit of recency bias. It wasn’t until their last year for the most part that they really seemed to hold up. The first few years IIRC were not well loved at all. Surprise, Ogier also had a lot to say about them during that time.
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u/Tordoff-600 Ott Tänak 12d ago
I do not want Hankook back, so anything but them would go down nice for me. Østberg had a rant at Sardegna in 2021, if you didn't know.
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u/SwooshRoc 12d ago
It really is the same teething problem. Pirelli were still making bad headlines a year before the end of their contract. This is not an endorsement for Hancock either. If they are still shit in a year or so they aren’t evolving like Pirelli. Pirelli was equally bad during that time in F1 too. So I double did not like Pirelli and I’m not sad to see them gone.
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u/K-TR0N M-Sport Ford 12d ago
I think we have Hankook for a few more years yet?
They alluded to this during the season, but they need to be given more freedom to develop event specific tyres rather than a single spec for the entire season.
What works in Finland/Estonia does not in Greece or Kenya and some half-way all conditions tyre evidently doesn't work anywhere.
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u/Tordoff-600 Ott Tänak 12d ago
I know the contract isn’t up, but I want them gone. Yeah they need to develop more into rallying to gain experience with different road surfaces.
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u/Business-Cap3776 12d ago
Sardegna wasn’t even that bad, look back at Paraguay or even worse Kenya the hankooks, it was literally a lottery for who wasn’t going to get a puncture for some stages
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u/Tordoff-600 Ott Tänak 12d ago
Fourmaux’s puncture at Sardegna when he was in a fight for a podium? If we look at Croatia, most crews got punctures/delaminations on Sunday’s stages.
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u/Business-Cap3776 12d ago
Yeah there were like 5 punctures out of my head (fourmaux x2, ogier, Solberg and Evans) and Evan’s puncture almost cost him the world rally championship (there’s bigger fish to fry on sardegna alone) but the amount of punctures on Kenya Croatia and Paraguay were another level
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u/kfifigidifkg 12d ago
Maybe slower cars next year might mean the tyres hold up a bit better (on top of them hopefully improving too).
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u/KnightOfRen5563 Ott Tänak 12d ago
Agreed on all points. Hankook makes me wish for Pirelli again, which is saying something considering they were quite shit themselves. Pajari and Virves were definitely the stars of the season for me. The perfect combination of consistency and speed.
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u/Tordoff-600 Ott Tänak 12d ago
As a Nordic-Baltic rally fan, we were treated to some spectacular performances by the 2 drivers, everyone here in Estonia have been raving about Virves this season. Yeah, anything but Hankook, I hoped for a Fourmaux victory but the puncture cost him. Virves to M-Sport? Fingers crossed 🤞🏻
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u/iHawXx 12d ago
Why don't they just let teams pick whatever tyres they want within a given criteria? Is it just the sponsorship money?
I don't even think the rate of tyre problems would go down all that much, but at least the fault would be with the teams.
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u/Tordoff-600 Ott Tänak 12d ago
The FIA and the WRC Promoter have a contract with Hankook for the tyres. In the ERC, crews can pick from 4 tyre manufacturers: MRF Tyres, Pirelli, Hankook and Michelin. Pirelli does well in the ERC with the crews that have them allocated, alongside Michelin.
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u/ElecXeron20XX 12d ago
Well their contract in WRC ends at the end of next year depends if Michelin will do major FIA championship after WEC as it is their only sole supplier next year as MotoGP is out for this year while Formula E they split since mid-2022 before Gen 3.
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u/Chipmunk_Shot 12d ago
Taka winning his first rally had me more emotional than Evans winning his first championship. Oliver winning Monte right out of the gate is incredible too! Overall it seems everybody's happy!!
The only thing affecting me personally is that after watching 2 years of Rally Japan, this year they moved the location to a super remote place, and I just gave up lolll
Goodbye WRC1, I hv models of a Yaris and a Puma, gonna feel bitter sweet everytime I look at them.
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u/ElecXeron20XX 12d ago edited 12d ago
Will Elfyn stick 33 next year or copy Seb and Theirry and pick 1? Aside for that it is gonna be long wait for the future of drivers, teams and even our calender next year all we know Monte Carlo is the opening round.
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u/Independent_Blood107 Mikko Hirvonen 12d ago
Just wanted to mention Matteo Fontana, won 2 stages and scored points with a Rally3 as well winning back-to-back WRC3 titels, he recently started a few events in italy on a Yaris Rally2 and had promising results, might be someone to keep an eye on for next year
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u/Flawnex Rally Finland 11d ago
As a new fan I of course gravitated towards the young unproven drivers and was delighted to see how strong Pajari, Fourmaux and Solberg were throughout the year. These three seem like the future of rally and hope we get to see them battle it out in competitive cars in the upcoming years
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u/Tordoff-600 Ott Tänak 11d ago
Elfyn and Scotty deserved their titles', should've gotten at least 2 already.
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u/onlinepresenceofdan M-Sport Ford 12d ago
My only hope is that fia manages to not kill wrc with whatever the next season will bring in terms of parity etc. We are in incredibly unstable environment of rules (apart from the actual environment…) and a year of Toyota being the only car of its class could kill the whole thing.
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u/Zolba 12d ago
No it won't. WRC wasn't killed by virtually only having Lancia being serious in 1987 and 1988.
Neither was WRC killed with only 4-5 full time drivers through 1996 and 1997.
One year as a "Toyota Cup" won't kill WRC as long as the Toyotas bring a good fight.
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u/onlinepresenceofdan M-Sport Ford 12d ago
Examples from 30+ years ago.. when most manufacturers pulled out at the end of 2005 the worldwide interest died. Then the remains were lowered even more at end of 2008. WRC has never recovered to that. Now we are at a point of irrelevance once again, compare other sports reddits for example, barely anybody cares.
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u/Zolba 12d ago
Then there's the always present question. Did manufacturers pull out and then the interest died, or did they pull out because the interest was slipping and it cost too much for what they got back from it?
I genuinely believe that they have a good idea behind the rules to try to get more manufacturers or constructors in to the sport, in a simpler way, which can emulate the many different entries throughout the Gr.A time. The challenge is to get them to commit at roughly the same time.
And... The promoter needs to properly promote.2
u/876oy8 Rally Finland 12d ago
we already have a confirmed manufacturer for the future, for the first time since toyota was announced in 2015. we have the additional "tuner" constructors, we have customer interest in the top class again.
we are not worse off than 5 years ago and we are only scratching the surface of this regulation at this point.
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u/kfifigidifkg 12d ago
Toyota may as well have been the only car in its class this year too and we’ve had a great season. As long as Toyota has most of the best drivers too, I don’t actually think it’s a massive issue.
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u/onlinepresenceofdan M-Sport Ford 12d ago
Toyota will have its own class next year, now they outdeveloped Hyundai and both outspent Msport but it was fair. Next year its easy to imagine the BoP going wrong.
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u/876oy8 Rally Finland 12d ago edited 12d ago
i think this season was good despite obviously dearly missing two great champions and a competitive hyundai. internal toyota battle was good, but that is not a high bar, and shouldnt be the bar.
the title battle reached unprecedented levels of tension and drama at the end. that will definitely make this a memorable one to think back.
oliver solberg is a great addition to the top class, as im pretty sure we've all previously speculated he would be. super fast, super erratic, mistake prone, emotional. great to watch.
pajari is a positive surprise compared to last year. not only in performance but also as a character. very interested to see where he ultimately ends up with more experience and perhaps more competition in the lineup of drivers in the future.
fourmaux gets my third shoutout. the win escaped him, but beating neuville fairly comprehensively is no mean feat. tänak has beat him head to head before, but never by such margin. he is definitely entering a conversation for the best winless WRC driver. definite top level performer.
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u/ActuatorOutside5256 12d ago
We finally got Elfwin Evans.