Elfyn Evans is WRC champion after Solberg crashes two corners out
Oliver Solberg was 1,200 metres from the world title when it slipped away
Elfyn Evans is the 2026 World Rally champion. The Welshman and co-driver Scott Martin take the title at Rally Italia Sardegna, the season finale, after Toyota team-mate Oliver Solberg slides off the road two corners from the end of the closing Power Stage. Solberg still wins the rally by 57.6 seconds from Sébastien Ogier, while Evans finishes fifth.
Oliver Solberg crashed two corners from the end of the 7.1 km Power Stage
Oliver Solberg was 1.9 seconds faster than Evans with 1.2 km of the 7.1 km Sassari to Argentiera stage left, which was enough to make him champion. On a left-hander along the Argentiera coast he oversteered, caught the slide too hard the other way and left the road into the dunes. He rejoined and finished, nine seconds slower than Evans. Evans had already written himself off, admitting he had overdriven his own run after Sami Pajari, starting two cars behind him, went 2.2 seconds quicker. Hyundai's Thierry Neuville, who restarted on Sunday after losing a wheel on Saturday, set the fastest time.
Elfyn Evans won the WRC title from fifth place and zero Sunday points
Elfyn Evans arrived in Sardinia 21 points ahead of Solberg and 17 ahead of Pajari, with 35 available: 25 for the overall result, five for the Sunday-only classification and five for the Power Stage. Solberg's Saturday lead cut the gap to a net six points. Early on the penultimate stage Evans stopped to change a punctured front-right tyre, the second rally in a row he lost time that way on the penultimate stage after Chile, and dropped out of the Sunday points. That left him one point clear, and a tie would have gone to Solberg on his third win of the year. Whoever was quicker on the last stage would be champion.
Five WRC runner-up finishes since 2020, the first lost to a crash at Monza
Elfyn Evans finished second in the championship five times in six seasons between 2020 and 2025. The first one went in the worst way: he led Ogier by 14 points into the 2020 finale at Monza and slid off a snow-covered road, losing the title by eight points. Ogier beat him again at Monza in 2021, and in 2025 a puncture-strewn three-way decider in Saudi Arabia went the Frenchman's way too. Evans, 37 and from Dolgellau in north-west Wales, has 13 WRC rally wins, the first at Wales Rally GB in 2017. Six years after his own crash cost him a title, a rival's crash gives him one.
Evans is Wales' first WRC champion and Britain's first since Richard Burns in 2001
Elfyn Evans becomes the third British world rally champion after Colin McRae in 1995 and Richard Burns in 2001, and the first from Wales. Scott Martin becomes the first Englishman to win the co-drivers' title. The pair have shared a car since 2017 and moved together from M-Sport Ford to Toyota in 2020, the switch that turned Evans from a rally winner into a permanent title contender. They take the title in a Toyota GR Yaris Rally1, the car all three contenders drove this season.
Rally Italia Sardegna closes the Rally1 era and Sardinia's WRC run
Rally Italia Sardegna was the last event for Rally1 cars before new WRC27 rules arrive, with the first WRC27 prototypes already testing ahead of 2027. It was also the island's last WRC round: the Italian event moves to Rome next year. Sardinia only became the finale because the FIA cancelled Rally Saudi Arabia, cutting the season to 13 rounds. Pajari, 24, came in with the most wins of 2026 (Estonia, Finland and Paraguay), which tells the championship's new owners where the next title fight is coming from.
AutoNext Take
Two corners decided the trophy, not the season. Evans led the championship for ten rounds before Sardinia and arrived 21 points clear because he kept finishing rallies when faster rivals did not, which is exactly what a 13-round title should reward. Solberg drove the better weekend by almost a minute, and the points format gave him a genuine chance from 21 behind. He very nearly took it.
At 25, with three wins this year and the quickest Sunday of the finale, Solberg should be world champion by the end of 2028. Evans, after five near-misses, has earned the right to make him wait.
