Rovanperä spearheads 1-2-3-4 finish for TOYOTA GAZOO Racing

Kalle Rovanperä has claimed an emphatic victory at the head of an outstanding 1-2-3-4 finish for TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team at Rally Islas Canarias.

Based on the island of Gran Canaria in the Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of Africa, the event was making its debut in the FIA World Rally Championship. As the first pure asphalt round of the season, it was also the first rally with the new hard-compound Hankook asphalt tyre.

The smooth and winding stages required ultimate confidence and performance and the GR YARIS Rally1 proved up to the task, never being headed in the stage times across the 18 stages. Rovanperä and co-driver Jonne Halttunen won 15 stages – and all but one of the full-length tests in the mountains. Putting a challenging start to the season behind him, Rovanperä led overall from start to finish to return to the top step of the podium for the first time since Rally Chile last October.

He sealed the win by 53.5 seconds after also setting the best time in the rally-ending Power Stage and topping the Super Sunday classification to score a maximum of 35 points.

With his 16th career victory, Rovanperä now stands alone as the most successful driver for Toyota in the WRC, having previously been tied with Sébastien Ogier and Carlos Sainz on 15 wins and two drivers’ titles with the brand.

Ogier was Rovanperä’s closest challenger throughout the weekend, as he and co-driver Vincent Landais made a strong return to action for the first time since their win at January’s Rallye Monte-Carlo. After finally getting the better of Rovanperä in the penultimate stage, he secured second overall and was second fastest in the Power Stage and Super Sunday.

Elfyn Evans and co-driver Scott Martin completed the podium – their fourth top-three finish from as many rounds so far this season – and also came third in the Power Stage and Super Sunday. Those results increase Evans’ drivers’ championship lead to 43 points with Rovanperä now up into second.

Takamoto Katsuta and his co-driver Aaron Johnston completed the top-four sweep: the third time that TGR-WRT has achieved such a result after doing so at Safari Rally Kenya in both 2022 and 2023. With a third maximum score of 60 manufacturers’ points from four events, the team’s championship lead is increased to 51.

For a large part of the rally, the team was locking out the top five positions with a great performance by rookie Sami Pajari, who was on course to match his best-ever finish in fourth with co-driver Marko Salminen. He ran wide and hit a barrier late on Saturday, forcing him to retire with damage, but can take the positives from his pace, rivalling his more experienced team-mates in the stage times.

The GR Yaris Rally2 finished second in a competitive WRC2 class in the hands of Spanish champions Alejandro Cachón and Borja Rozada as they make the step up for this season in a car entered by Toyota Spain and run by Teo Martín Motorsport.

Quotes:
Akio Toyoda (TGR-WRT Chairman)
“I believe that this wonderful result we achieved was made possible by the efforts of every single member of TGR-WRT. I’m so thankful to everyone. It was amazing that we could finish 1-2-3-4 with Kalle, Seb, Elfyn, and Takamoto on the roads of Gran Canaria, which we drove for the first time.
Juha, as the one with lots of experience in the Canary Islands, told everyone about the roads there and provided reassurance to the team even before the rally started. Even on unfamiliar roads, our engineers and mechanics managed to prepare the cars with setups that the drivers already felt confident with in shakedown. I heard that after Friday, the drivers expressed their appreciation to them for the great work done. We are a team where members can say thank you to each other while fighting together, and TGR-WRT always aspires to be such a team.
Thank you, everyone! Great work! This rally, in particular, was filled with everyone’s hearts. We have a busy schedule ahead leading up to Rally Finland. Let’s continue to push as one team!”

Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)
“This kind of result doesn’t happen very often so we are very happy. Thanks to the team, everything went really well, starting from our testing and the setup. Our car was working perfectly for our drivers on these roads. It was really nice to see Kalle’s speed: it was a 10 out of 10 drive. He was driving really relaxed and clean and dominated the weekend. His performance didn’t surprise me: when he finds fifth gear, he’s really quite a fast boy. But the whole team was driving well. Seb has done two rallies this year and come first and second, Elfyn continues to do a really good job, and Taka also drove really nicely here. There are still many rallies to come and we know they will be tighter with our competition, but I’m confident in our team’s work.”

Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“It’s been a great weekend from the team with an incredible performance from the GR YARIS Rally1. A big thank you to the team who’ve done a great job understanding the challenges of this rally, preparing the car and adapting to the new tyres. A big well done to Kalle because he had pace that nobody else could match this weekend, and well done to Seb also. I’m not wholly satisified of course to have been a bit behind them and not fight for the win with equal machinery, but it’s still good points and we have to be relatively pleased with that.”

Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“It’s been a super weekend for us and also the whole team. To get a 1-2-3-4 result like this again is quite amazing. We have just been enjoying the driving. The car has been super fast, so a big thanks to the whole team for preparing it so well. Jonne has also been doing a great job and we drove well so it’s probably one of my best wins so far. It’s not so often on this level when you can be so consistently fast through the whole weekend. To get maximum points was our goal today and we really needed that. It’s still a big gap to Elfyn but at least we are now a step closer and we keep working.”

Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)
“It’s an amazing result for the team to lock out the top four. It doesn’t happen every time and we need to be very happy with that. On our side, second place is not my favourite position but it’s still a good one. I think we drove a pretty good rally. I enjoyed it so much, the car was fun to drive and a big thanks to the team for giving us the best tools this weekend. Kalle and Jonne were untouchable but it’s still a very positive weekend for us, securing maximum points for the team.”

Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“I’m very proud to be part of such an amazing result for the team. A big thanks to everyone in the team for preparing the car so well. It’s been such a nice car to drive all weekend and this is why we could finish 1-2-3-4 on such a new and different rally that we haven’t been to before. On my side it would have been nice if we could have finished even higher, but it’s been a good rally for us with no big moments, and I will focus now on the next one to keep improving.”

PROVISIONAL FINAL CLASSIFICATION, RALLY ISLAS CANARIAS
1 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 2h54m39.8s
2 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +53.5s
3 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m17.1s
4 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +2m02.9s
5 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +2m31.0s
6 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +3m11.4s
7 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +3m40.7s
8 Yohan Rossel/Arnaud Dunand (Citroën C3 Rally2) +7m10.7s
9 Alejandro Cachón/Borja Rozada (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +7m40.2s
10 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +7m58.4s
Retired Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1)
(Results as of 18:00 on Sunday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)

2025 FIA World Rally Championship for drivers after round 4:
1 Elfyn Evans 109 points
2 Kalle Rovanperä 66
3 Thierry Neuville 59
4 Sébastien Ogier 58
5 Ott Tänak 57
6 Adrien Fourmaux 44
7 Takamoto Katsuta 39
8 Sami Pajari 19
9 Grégoire Munster 16
10 Mārtiņš Sesks 8

2025 FIA World Rally Championship for manufacturers after round 4:
1 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team 208 points
2 Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team 157
3 M-Sport Ford World Rally Team 58
4 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRT2 25

What’s next?
The popular Rally de Portugal (May 15-18) is based in Matosinhos near Porto in the north of the country, and features classic stages on sandy and rocky gravel roads.

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