Sébastien Ogier held a 17.3-second lead with two stages left in Rally de Portugal. He drove home with nothing but a sixth-place finish and a story about a rock in a rut.
The penultimate stage of Sunday’s finale — the second pass through Vieira do Minho — destroyed Toyota’s weekend in a matter of minutes. Ogier hit a rock in the deeply rutted track, punctured a tyre, and lost roughly two minutes changing the wheel. Sami Pajari, running third at the time, struck what he described as a “huge loose stone” in nearly the same spot and suffered an identical fate.
Thierry Neuville inherited the victory for Hyundai, winning Rally de Portugal in 3h53m01.7s without ever holding the lead when it mattered most until the moment it mattered most.
Toyota still walked away with second and third through Oliver Solberg and Elfyn Evans, both of whom climbed the order only because their teammates’ rallies imploded. Neither pretended otherwise. “I’m sorry to our team-mates who had been in front of us,” Solberg said. Evans was equally blunt: “I never want to gain positions that way.”
The cruel arithmetic tells the fuller story. Ogier, who had mastered treacherous wet conditions on Saturday afternoon to build his commanding advantage, finished 1m26.6s off the win — almost all of it from a single wheel change. Pajari dropped to seventh, 2m50.9s back, after what he called “one of the best” performances of his season. Two punctures, same stage, same team. Rally de Portugal has always been a car-breaker, but this was surgical.
Deputy team principal Juha Kankkunen — yes, that Juha Kankkunen — framed it with the fatalism of a four-time world champion. “We benefitted from a similar situation in Croatia this year and now we were on the other side. This is rallying: it’s never over until it’s over.”
He’s right, but the championship math still favors Toyota heavily. Evans extends his drivers’ lead to 12 points over teammate Takamoto Katsuta, who quietly brought his GR Yaris home fifth after struggling with a setup gamble early in the weekend. Solberg climbs to third overall, 31 points off Evans.
Toyota leads the manufacturers‘ standings 311 to 218 over Hyundai — a 93-point cushion that even a result this painful barely dents.
Neuville, the reigning champion who has endured a brutal title defense, sits seventh in the standings with just 65 points after six rounds. He needed this win desperately, and Portugal delivered it to him gift-wrapped. He’ll take it. He has to.
In WRC2, Toyota’s GR Yaris Rally2 managed a one-two through Teemu Suninen and Roope Korhonen, a result that would have been the weekend’s headline had the Rally1 drama not swallowed everything else.
The season moves to Rally Japan on May 28-31, shifted from its traditional November date to the heart of spring. It’s a home event for Toyota — service park in Toyota City, twisting mountain asphalt through Aichi and Gifu — and the kind of rally where the manufacturer should dominate. Evans will arrive as the points leader on friendly ground. Ogier will arrive angry.
Portugal proved what it always proves: gravel rallying is still the most honest form of motorsport. No amount of pace, preparation, or brilliance protects a driver against a loose rock at the wrong moment on the wrong stage. Ogier did everything right for three days and got nothing for it. Neuville gets the trophy by being the last man standing. That’s not luck. That’s Portugal.
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