Evans arrived in Sardinia leading the championship by 17 points from Sami Pajari and 21 from Solberg, but his weekend never really got going. As the championship leader, he started first on the road on Friday and swept loose gravel off the stages for everyone behind him. By Saturday’s midday halt, he was sixth and nearly two minutes off the lead, saying his pace was “a bit out of my control with the road cleaning so much.” Our WRC strategy explainer covers why road position matters so much on gravel.

His approach from there was simple: stay on the road and collect what points he could. He finished the rally fifth, 4 minutes 57 seconds behind Solberg, and was third fastest on the Power Stage. It wasn’t a champion’s drive in the usual sense, but it was enough.

Evans admitted he’d given up. “I was quite sure that it was over,” he said. “I didn’t drive the best stage. I threw everything at it, but it wasn’t clean.” And his first thoughts were for his team-mate: “I feel sorry for Oliver as well. He did an incredible weekend, and I’m sorry for him to lose it so close to the finish there.”

Solberg did everything right for almost the whole weekend. He took the lead on Saturday morning, built it into a commanding advantage, and went into Sunday’s final stage with the rally won and the championship within reach. The title came down to the Wolf Power Stage, the 7.10 km Sassari–Argentiera test, which awards bonus points to the five fastest drivers.

Evans ran first and set a 4:59.8, a time he wasn’t happy with. Solberg started after him and attacked. At the last split, about a kilometre from the finish, he was 1.9 seconds up on Evans and on course for the title.

Then, on a medium-speed left-hander, the car caught a gravel bank on the outside of the corner, bucked out of the ruts and was pulled off the road through the silt and bushes. “I expected the corner to be fine and it was fine until there was a bush, like a gravel bank on the outside, and I didn’t expect the car to hook me in,” Solberg said. He got going again and reached the finish, still winning the rally, but the time he lost cost him the Power Stage points he needed.

Power Stage times

Neuville, the 2024 champion, was fastest on the stage. You can read about his own long road to the title in our Thierry Neuville profile. Pajari’s second-fastest time lifted him to within a point of Solberg in the final table. For why mistakes like Solberg’s happen even to the best drivers, see what causes crashes in motor racing.

It’s one of the closest finishes the championship has seen: three team-mates within six points after 13 rounds. Solberg outscored Evans by 16 in Sardinia and Pajari outscored him by 11, but neither quite closed the gap. Our guide to how racing championships are scored explains how bonus points work, and our pre-rally Sardinia permutations set out what each driver needed.

Rally Italia Sardegna 2026: final classification

Toyota, which had already won the manufacturers’ title in Chile, finished the season with 662 points to Hyundai’s 440. For the year as a whole, see our WRC 2026 power rankings.

For years, Evans has been the nearly man of the WRC. Fast, consistent and popular in the service park, he finished second in the championship five times, often against Sébastien Ogier and Kalle Rovanperä. Many in the sport wondered if his chance had gone. This year he led for most of the season, then watched that lead shrink as Pajari won three rallies in a row and Solberg came back from 59 points down.

The title makes him the first British world rally champion since Richard Burns in 2001, and the first from Wales. It also completes a long partnership with co-driver Scott Martin, who has sat alongside him through all those near-misses.

It would be wrong to remember Solberg’s 2026 only for one corner. In June, after a run of crashes and retirements, he was fifth in the championship and 59 points behind. He then put together the best second half of anyone: second places in Estonia and Finland, a dominant win in Chile, and in Sardinia a rally win by almost a minute. In his first full season in a Rally1 car, at 25, he came within a kilometre of following his father Petter, the 2003 champion.

That’s what makes the ending so hard. A clean finish on the Power Stage was all he needed, and the mistake came at a corner he said looked fine until it wasn’t. He’ll start 2027 as one of the favourites, and few would bet against him getting there soon. For the full story of his comeback, read Oliver Solberg was 59 points behind.

The championship now heads into an off-season of change. The Saudi finale was dropped this year, as we covered in the WRC calendar shake-up, and new rules are on the way. Our look at WRC’s 2027 reset covers what’s next.