Sébastien Ogier claimed a surprise Secto Rally Finland victory on Sunday after his Toyota GAZOO Racing team-mate Kalle Rovanperä rolled out of the lead on the event’s penultimate stage.
Rovanperä had led for almost every kilometre of this four-day gravel fixture and looked set to end Finland’s seven-year wait for a native winner, with a 45.8-second advantage going into the rally’s penultimate stage. However, it all went wrong for the 23-year-old when he clipped a rogue rock, pushing his GR Yaris Rally1 off the line and into a rally-ending roll.
The same stage had earlier served up further drama when Rovanperä’s colleague, Elfyn Evans, also left the road while chasing down Super Sunday points to make up for a broken driveshaft on Friday.
On his first Finnish outing since 2021, Ogier was on hand to pick up the pieces and took his 61st WRC victory by 40.1 seconds from Hyundai i20 N Rally1 driver Thierry Neuville. Adrien Fourmaux, driving a Puma Rally1 for M-Sport Ford, filled the final podium spot 34.0sec further back.
“It’s hard to smile right now,” Ogier admitted. “A win in Finland is always nice, but this is not the way we like to have it. Very sorry for Kalle and Jonne, they were unlucky with the stone and it’s a shame for them. We were unlucky in Sardinia and lost in the last stage, but we are lucky here. That’s motorsport.”
Today’s events have shaken up the driver’s championship standings with Ogier now up to second despite missing three rallies earlier this year. After Friday retiree Ott Tänak and Evans both scored zero, the pair dropped to third and fourth respectively.
But it was Neuville who was the biggest winner in terms of the title race. Having arrived to Finland with an eight-point lead, the Belgian’s buffer now stands at 27 points after round nine of 13 while his Hyundai Motorsport team increased its lead over Toyota in the manufacturers’ championship to 20.
“It was a real rollercoaster of emotions this weekend,” he said. “We had a clever approach this weekend knowing it was hard to fight with the Toyotas. After our team’s issues (Tänak and Esapekka Lappi both crashing on Friday), we knew we had to bring the points home.”
Fourmaux’s third-place result marked his fourth podium of the season. The Frenchman trailed Neuville by 34.0sec at the final control, with Sami Pajari’s Toyota 40.0sec behind.
Pajari, along with co-driver Enni Mälkönen, delivered an impressive drive on his top-flight debut. After a rocky start to the rally, which included two spins resulting in rear wing damage on Friday, the Finnish pair claimed their first-ever WRC stage win at Ruuhimäki on Saturday.