Perfect five-star Finland finish for Toyota Gazoo Racing
Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team is celebrating a perfect result on home roads at Rally Finland yesterday (3 August) after local hero Kalle Rovanperä led a historic top-five lockout for the GR Yaris Rally1.
Rovanperä and co-driver Jonne Halttunen secured a long-awaited first win on their home event with a superb attacking drive, one year on from the heartbreak of crashing out of the lead on the penultimate stage. Holding the lead of this year’s edition since the first forest stage on Friday morning, Rovanperä enjoyed improved feeling and speed compared to previous gravel rallies with this year’s car and tyre package.
He carried a lead of 36.1 seconds into the final day’s two runs over the Ouninpohja test, and went quickest on the second pass to take his 10th stage win of the weekend, as well as top the Power Stage and Super Sunday classifications for a full haul of 35 points.
Rovanperä’s drive set a new record for the fastest in FIA World Rally Championship history, with a winning average speed of 80.72mph.
Takamoto Katsuta finished second overall with co-driver Aaron Johnston, claiming his second podium from the last three editions in Finland, where he learned his craft as a rally driver with the TGR WRC Challenge Program. He was second quickest to Rovanperä on the Power Stage to secure his overall position by 5.9s ahead of last year’s Rally Finland winners Sébastien Ogier and Vincent Landais. Ogier went third-fastest on the Power Stage to hold off Elfyn Evans by just three seconds after Evans and his co-driver Scott Martin had won the first pass through Ouninpohja.
Ending up fourth in Super Sunday and fifth in the Power Stage, Evans moves back into the lead of the driver’s championship, three points in front of Rovanperä. Ogier is just 10 points further back in third. With their eighth win from nine rallies this season, TGR-WRT increase their manufacturers’ championship lead to 87 points.
Sami Pajari completed the perfect result in fifth overall with one of his strongest Rally1 drives to-date at his home event, claiming three stage wins along the way together with co-driver Marko Salminen.
It is only the second time a manufacturer has locked out the top five places at the end of a WRC round, and the first time since Lancia did so in Portugal in 1990. Juha Kankkunen, now Deputy Team Principal of TGR-WRT, was part of that result as a driver, finishing third.
There was also a GR Yaris Rally2 one-two in the WRC2 category, with Roope Korhonen scoring his maiden win alongside Anssi Viinikka and Rautio Motorsport after holding off Jari-Matti Latvala – Team Principal of TGR-WRT – and Janni Hussi by just 1.1s at the finish. TGR WRC Challenge Program driver Yuki Yamamoto made it three Toyota cars in the top five with his best result and performance so far, including a stage win shared with Latvala on Saturday.
Team quotes
Akio Toyoda (TGR-WRT Chairman): “Congratulations to all the crews for this 1-2-3-4-5 finish. Including Jari-Matti’s second place in the WRC2 class and the win for the GR Yaris Rally2, we were able to return the favour to the people of our hometown, Jyväskylä, with this fantastic result. I really appreciate everyone in the team’s efforts for making this happen.
“Congratulations to Kalle and Jonne on their first victory in their home country. Last year and two years ago, Rally Finland must have been frustrating for them, so I’m truly happy that they were finally able to show the winning trophy to the local fans.
“Takamoto, congratulations on your second place in your second hometown. I wanted to spray champagne with you just like two years ago, but I couldn’t make it there this year. I’ll save the next champagne celebration for when you stand at the very top. Let’s keep working hard toward the rally in your first hometown.
“Elfyn and Seb also brought solid results for the championship. There are five more rallies left this season, and we will work together as a team to build cars that let our drivers enjoy driving more than ever before.”
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal): “This is an unbelievable result for us. The last time any team managed this was 35 years ago – when I was driving and finished third. We were helped a bit on Saturday but that’s rallying sometimes and it’s a great result for the drivers’ and manufacturers’ championships. It was great to see Kalle back to his normal speed and able to win his home rally: it’s an important result for any Finnish driver and it took me 11 years of trying, so Kalle has still managed to do it a bit earlier than me. The feeling in the team on Sunday morning was really good and the drivers just went for it. Taka drove a great rally – he was so calm and quick – and Seb, Elfyn and Sami were superb also. I think I have a dream team. I’m sure we’ll keep seeing good results from all of them until the end of the season.”
Elfyn Evans (driver car 33): “It’s a great result for the team to have all five cars in the top five. On my side I’m a bit disappointed how the final day turned out. It was an exciting format and we had a good run the first time through Ouninpohja. The Power Stage didn’t go quite so brilliantly. I had a couple of places in the stage where I couldn’t turn in just as I wanted and lost too much time. Otherwise it was a good stage, but with such fine margins, we missed out on a lot of extra points. But we’ll continue to the next one.”
Kalle Rovanperä (driver car 69): “It is an amazing feeling to win Rally Finland. It has been a long time coming, but with so much support from the fans every year, I feel super happy to win in front of them. This year everybody did a crazy amount of work to make it happen. Jonne and everybody in the team have been fantastic and we were pushing the whole weekend. It’s also a historical moment for Toyota to fill positions one to five, so everybody has done a great job. It was an intense final day on one of the most demanding stages to get right and we had to push very hard to take the points we did.”
Sébastien Ogier (driver car 17): “This is an amazing result, especially here in Finland where the team are based. It’s well deserved because the team has been pushing hard the whole year and I’m glad to be a part of such a historic result. I’m also really happy for Kalle and Jonne after last year when they already deserved to win. It wasn’t the smoothest weekend for me and I was struggling a bit to keep up with the pace. But after a lot of changes the setup was suiting me better on Sunday and it was a fantastic feeling to drive this car on this epic stage.”
Takamoto Katsuta (driver car 18): “I’m very happy to be back on the podium and finish in second place in Finland, which is such an important place for me and the team. ‘Kiitos paljon’ to all the Finnish fans who are cheering for me a lot. Huge thanks also to the team who are always supporting me, and especially Aaron who has been doing a great job. I’m really happy for the team and that Kalle could finally win here after so much bad luck. We promised each other before the rally that we could be on the podium together. I can be happy with my performance this weekend and the car was working very well.”
Sami Pajari (driver car 5): “It’s just amazing to be part of this result for Toyota. The team were really on it this weekend, so it’s well deserved by everybody. It has been a very good weekend for us, taking a few stage wins and otherwise having some solid pace. Today was also nice driving a stage like Ouninpohja, even if we were focused on just securing the result. I have really enjoyed the whole weekend, so thanks to the team and all the fans for their support.”
PROVISIONAL FINAL CLASSIFICATION, RALLY FINLAND
1 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 2h21m51.4s
2 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +39.2s
3 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +45.1s
4 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +48.1s
5 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m18.8s
6 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +2m01.5s
7 Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy (Ford Puma Rally1) +4m07.4s
8 Mārtiņš Sesks/Renārs Francis (Ford Puma Rally1) +5m17.2s
9 Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1) +5m24.9s
10 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +7m38.4s
(Results as of 14:30 on Sunday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
2025 FIA World Rally Championship for drivers after round 9:
1 Elfyn Evans 176 points
2 Kalle Rovanperä 173
3 Sébastien Ogier 163
4 Ott Tänak 163
5 Thierry Neuville 125
6 Takamoto Katsuta 87
7 Adrien Fourmaux 71
8 Oliver Solberg 52
9 Sami Pajari 48
10 Grégoire Munster 21
2025 FIA World Rally Championship for manufacturers after round 9:
1 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team 458 points
2 Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team 371
3 M-Sport Ford World Rally Team 129
4 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRT2 85
What’s next?
The WRC will visit Paraguay for the first time on 28 – 31 August for the first of two consecutive events on South American gravel, with Rally Chile to follow a fortnight later.
ENDS
