Sébastien Ogier has claimed a record-extending 10th victory on the legendary Rallye Monte-Carlo as TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team scored a one-two finish to launch its 2025 FIA World Rally Championship campaign with a maximum points haul.
The victory is Ogier’s third Rallye Monte-Carlo win with TGR-WRT and his second with co-driver Vincent Landais, and brings Toyota’s all-time record on the event to six wins.
As usual the rally brought a wide range of changeable conditions during the weekend, with dry asphalt stages in the mountains of the French Alps also featuring sections of ice as well as plenty of mud and gravel being dragged onto the road. It provided a challenging first event for the teams and drivers with the revised technical package for 2025, with the top class of Rally1 cars no longer featuring hybrid units and also running on Hankook tyres for the first time.
Despite these challenges, the battle for victory remained tight throughout the weekend and went down to the very last stage across the iconic Col de Turini on Sunday afternoon. Ogier had eked out a lead of 20.3 seconds over Evans going into the final day, with the Hyundai pair of Adrien Fourmaux and Ott Tänak also close behind, but an early start combined with cold and wet conditions made for a difficult last tyre choice.
Ogier and Evans both took a package of four studded winter tyres plus two supersoft slick tyres, which paid off in the icy first stage prior to sunrise. With the four studded tyres fitted they were around 20s quicker than Fourmaux, but that advantage swung the other way on a drier second stage, where Fourmaux could fit his four slicks and close back to within 4s of Evans and 22.2s of Ogier.
The rally-ending Power Stage featured a true mix of conditions, with a largely dry ascent and descent but with some ice atop the famous Col. In the end, all of the top three drivers opted for a mix of slick and studded tyres and it was Ogier who set the best time, just 0.215s quicker than Evans – who ran wide and brushed a bank on the rapid descent to the finish.
Ogier’s win is also his 15th for TGR-WRT, drawing him level with team-mate Kalle Rovanperä and their fellow two-time champion Carlos Sainz as the drivers who have achieved the most WRC victories for Toyota.
Evans and co-driver Scott Martin start their season strongly, also topping the Super Sunday classification to earn five extra bonus points. 1.1s in front of Rovanperä and 1.8s in front of Ogier.
With a different tyre strategy, Rovanperä and Jonne Halttunen were consistent across all conditions on the final day and beat Ott Tänak to fourth overall, securing a solid haul of 18 points from a challenging weekend.
Takamoto Katsuta and Sami Pajari built their confidence and pace through the rally. Katsuta won a stage and was third-quickest across Saturday, while Pajari gathered valuable experience on his first Rallye Monte-Carlo in Rally1 machinery. Starting the final day sixth and seventh, both would unfortunately slide off the road in Sunday’s first stage.
Quotes:
Jari-Matti Latvala (Team Principal)
“I’m really delighted. We could not really have had a better start to the season than this: we got the maximum 60 points as a team, a one-two-four overall and the 10th victory for Sébastien Ogier on Rallye Monte-Carlo, which is a truly amazing and unique achievement. The conditions were very difficult until the end and the tyre choice was stressful this morning because the road was freezing after the route-note crews had passed through. Unfortunately Sami and Taka went off, and perhaps I should have pushed them to take a safer choice, but this rally was all about the experience for them. With our other drivers it worked out well in the end, so thank you to them. At the same time it was a very entertaining rally and I think we have an exciting season ahead.”Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“This was a typical Rallye Monte-Carlo, a bit more extreme than in recent years and it was a properly challenging weekend. I’m very happy to be here at the end with a decent haul of points. Today started off with some very tricky conditions, we made a change at the last moment to take four studded tyres and I wasn’t sure it was the right call. In the end it seems there wasn’t a lot between the two choices and we had a pretty thrilling Power Stage to finish: we had a close moment a few corners from the end but thankfully we managed to get away with it.”Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“Rallye Monte-Carlo is always tough and it was especially so this year. For me personally it was a pretty difficult weekend. We didn’t have the result that we wanted or the pace that we wanted but we have to be happy at the end to have got some pretty good points. Today was not a bad day for us: we just tried our best, kept consistent and it paid off. A big thanks to the team, now let’s see what we can do in Sweden.”Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)
“It’s amazing to win this rally for the 10th time: it makes me incredibly happy and proud. This rally is the one that gave me the dream to be a rally driver, so if I could pick only one to win in a season, it would always be this one. This year it’s been a huge fight up until the very last stage. We had changing conditions, difficult tyre decisions and pressure right until the end so I’m glad we managed to keep it under control. We definitely had some moments but to win this rally I think you always need a bit of luck too. It’s a perfect start to the year for the team so we couldn’t ask for anything more.”Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“This morning in the first stage we knew that the conditions could be quite tricky, but we came to one right-hand corner that was frosty where we didn’t have that information in our pacenotes. We were quite slow going into the corner, but the car went wide and got stuck in a small ditch which we couldn’t get out of. Until then it had been quite a good rally, especially Saturday when the pace was good. It’s a pity but I just need to refocus on the next rally in Sweden and try to do a good job for the team there.”Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“The approach for today was the same as before and we were not planning to push particularly hard. There was just one surprisingly icy braking point which just caught us out. It was an unfortunate end to our rally, as it been going according to plan until then. On Saturday especially we saw that the times were getting better and the feeling was getting better and the confidence was rising. Everything felt under control so it’s a pity to end the rally like this, but we will try to learn from what happened and look forward to Sweden.”
PROVISIONAL FINAL CLASSIFICATION, RALLYE MONTE-CARLO
- Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 3h19m06.1s
- Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +18.5s
- Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +26.0s
- Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +54.3s
- Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +59.0s
- Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +5m44.2s
- Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy (Ford Puma Rally1) +10m15.1s
- Yohan Rossel/Arnaud Dunand (Citroën C3 Rally2) +10m26.8s
- Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +11m40.7s
- Eric Camilli/Thibault de la Haye (Hyundai i20 N Rally2) +13m14.6s
Retired Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1)
Retired Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1)
(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 1:
- Sébastien Ogier 33 points
- Elfyn Evans 26
- Adrien Fourmaux 20
- Kalle Rovanperä 18
- Ott Tänak 11
- Thierry Neuville 9
- Josh McErlean 6
- Yohan Rossel 4
- Nikolay Gryazin 2
- Eric Camilli 1
2025 FIA World Rally Championship for manufacturers after round 1:
- TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team 60 points
- Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team 36
- M-Sport Ford World Rally Team 11
What’s next?
Rally Sweden (February 13-16) is the only full winter event of the season held on snow and ice. Metal studs inserted into the tyres bite into the surface to provide grip and allow for some of the highest speeds of the year.
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