Toyota Gazoo Racing seek success on Swedish snow
Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team intend to build on their strong start to the 2025 FIA World Rally Championship season when the snow and ice of Rally Sweden hosts round two this week (13-16 February).
TGR-WRT began the defence of their manufacturers’ championship title with a maximum points haul and a one-two finish at January’s Rallye Monte-Carlo, where Sébastien Ogier claimed a record-extending 10th victory on the event.
Ogier is contesting a partial schedule of rallies so will not be present in Sweden. His team-mate Elfyn Evans thus effectively leads the fight for the drivers’ title and will be opening the road on an event where he scored his first win with the team in 2020. Third on the road will be Kalle Rovanperä, who took victory in Sweden in 2022. Completing the team’s manufacturer line-up is Takamoto Katsuta, who has also performed strongly in Sweden previously, while Sami Pajari represents TGR-WRT2 on his first full winter rally in Rally1 machinery.
TGR-WRT will still enter a total of five GR Yaris Rally1 cars in Sweden, with Lorenzo Bertelli taking part in one of his favourite rallies through the team’s customer programme for the third consecutive year.
Considered the WRC’s only pure winter event, Rally Sweden holds good memories for TGR-WRT as the scene of their first victory back in 2017, when current Team Principal Jari-Matti Latvala was behind the wheel. In 2022 the rally moved north to Umeå, the largest city in northern Sweden and a short trip across the Gulf of Bothnia from Finland where TGR-WRT is based. The new location – closer to the Arctic Circle than to the capital city Stockholm – has helped ensure extreme winter conditions and provided even faster roads. Special studded tyres that bite into the surface help make it one the quickest rallies of the season, with drivers ‘leaning’ their cars on snowbanks by the sides of the road to carry more speed through corners.
The rally starts on Thursday evening with a short ‘sprint’ stage in Umeå, which will be run again on Friday after two loops of three stages separated by a mid-day service. Saturday’s format is similar but concludes with a double-length version of the Umeå stage – which also serves as the rally-ending Power Stage on Sunday when it follows two passes of the Västervik test.
Seven GR Yaris Rally2 cars will take part in WRC2 with the entry list led by Oliver Solberg, who begins his seven-round championship campaign with the Printsport team on his home event. Others to watch include Georg Linnamäe, who finished on the class podium with the RedGrey team in 2024, plus the Rautio Motorsport duo of Roope Korhonen and Tuukka Kauppinen, the latter fresh from winning the Arctic Rally. Rally Sweden regular Michał Sołowow joins Solberg under the Printsport awning.
The TGR WRC Challenge Program’s second generation drivers Hikaru Kogure and Yuki Yamamoto also begin their WRC2 campaigns in a pair of GR Yaris Rally2 cars, while third-generation duo Shotaro Goto and Takumi Matsushita make their WRC3 debuts in Renault Clio Rally3 machinery.
Team quotes
Jari-Matti Latvala (Team Principal): “Rally Sweden is almost like a home rally for our team, with the kind of winter conditions that we experience in Finland. These are some of the most enjoyable conditions for driving a rally car. Rallye Monte-Carlo was almost a perfect start to the season for us and we really hope to fight for the victory in Sweden as well. The conditions on a rally like this can be tricky, because if there’s fresh snow falling on top of the ice base it can impact the performance of the drivers running at the front, as Elfyn will be on Friday. Hopefully the conditions can be stable and then it will be a rally that all our drivers can enjoy. On every different surface we face at the start of this season, there are new tyres to learn about, so our testing before the event has been important to give our drivers an understanding of how to get the best from them during the rally.”
Elfyn Evans (driver car 33): “Our podium in Monte Carlo was a solid start to the year and we’re looking forward to the next challenge in Sweden. It’s an event that’s always a lot of fun to drive with the stages being as fast as they are. Opening the road could make for a difficult start to the weekend if there’s a lot of fresh snow like last year. On the other hand, if it’s icy, it could play into our hands; we’ll be giving it our all regardless. There’s a lot of learning to do at the start of the year about the new Hankook tyres and for Sweden it’s no different. So far the feeling is quite different to before and we have to try and adapt to that and get the most out of it.”
Kalle Rovanperä (driver car 69): “It was not the easiest start to the season for us at Rallye Monte-Carlo but we ended the weekend with some good points and now we want to try and have a strong performance in Sweden. Driving on snow is always a lot of fun and doing the Arctic Rally along with our pre-event test has been also really important to get some good kilometres on this surface with the new tyre and to get a feeling for it. We’ve been working hard with the team to find the best setup and the right direction for us to take, and so far the feeling has been pretty good. We’ll have to see what the conditions will be like but hopefully it can be a good rally for us.”
Takamoto Katsuta (driver car 18): “Rally Sweden is one of my favourite rallies and I will try to do my best there for the team. It’s going to be a big challenge with the new tyre for this event, which means that the feeling in the car will probably be a bit different to previously on this surface, but I will try to adapt. A lot can depend on the conditions we face. If there is a lot of snow like last year, then our road position could be good, but if the surface is just pure ice it could be more difficult for us. Naturally I’m hoping for plenty of snow but I will do my best either way.”
Sami Pajari (driver car 5): “I’m looking forward to Rally Sweden. It’s one of my favourite events in the whole WRC season. It’s a completely different to Rallye Monte-Carlo: the conditions are usually more stable and the tyre choice is a lot simpler with just one type available, so the approach can be more straightforward. Perhaps some people are hoping that I can fight for a top result there, but for me it’s very much still a learning event, because it’s my first winter rally in Rally1. I’m not setting high expectations: I just hope that we can enjoy the rally and have a good solid event.”
ENDS
