Solberg kept the lead through Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning and won the rally by almost a minute from Sébastien Ogier. Everything came down to the 7.10 km Sassari–Argentiera Power Stage. Evans, running first, set a 4:59.8 he wasn’t happy with. Solberg attacked and was 1.9 seconds faster at the last split, about a kilometre from the title.

Then, on a medium-speed left-hander, his car caught a gravel bank on the outside, bucked out of the ruts and was pulled off the road into the 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,” he said. He rejoined and reached the finish, but the time he lost cost him the title.

Below is how the rally stood at Saturday’s midday halt, when Solberg first took the lead, followed by the story of how he got into the fight.

Solberg didn’t start the weekend in front. He lost about six seconds to a puncture on Friday morning’s first stage and ended the day third, 12.3 seconds behind Thierry Neuville, who led Hyundai team-mate Adrien Fourmaux by just 0.4 seconds. Starting third on the road still gave him a cleaner surface than Evans, who as championship leader had to sweep the loose gravel for everyone behind him.

Saturday morning turned the rally. Solberg was fastest on the long Coiluna–Loelle stage (24.83 km), then won SS10, Solorchè, by 4.1 seconds from Fourmaux to take the lead. Neuville won SS8 and is still only 2.7 seconds behind. Fourmaux lost around a minute with a front-left puncture on SS8 and dropped out of the fight for the win. “I was a little cautious in some places because this was a difficult stage,” Solberg said. “I tried to drive cleanly.”

Rally Italia Sardegna standings after SS10

Live championship points at Saturday midday

WRC points are awarded on the final overall classification (25, 17, 15, 12, 10, 8 and so on), plus up to 5 for the Super Sunday classification and up to 5 for the Power Stage. If the rally finished as it stands now, before any Sunday bonuses, the table would look like this:

That makes Neuville, who isn’t in the title fight, the man who could decide it. He’s not planning to make it easy: “Oliver will go all-in,” he said at midday, “but I’m sure we can stay in the fight.” Our profile of Thierry Neuville covers the 2024 champion’s career.

Evans is being realistic. He’s almost 42 seconds behind Pajari and nearly two minutes off the lead, and has blamed road position for his pace: “It’s a bit out of my control with the road cleaning so much,” he said. “I’m not realistically going to catch anybody in front, so I’ve got to stay clean.” Pajari has been quicker than Evans all morning but is 1:15.5 off the lead. “This is where we are now,” he said. “I’m not giving up, but we have to see what we can do.”

For every scenario as it stood before the rally, see Evans, Pajari or Solberg: every Sardinia permutation. The rest of this page tells the story of how Solberg got into the fight.

The turnaround is easiest to see side by side. After the Acropolis Rally in round 8, the championship looked like Evans’ to lose. Four rounds later it’s a three-way fight between Toyota team-mates:

Over the last four rounds, Solberg has scored 106 points to Evans’ 68, cutting the gap by 38. That’s more than either of his title rivals. Sami Pajari has had a similar comeback, winning three rallies in a row in Estonia, Finland and Paraguay to go from 46 behind to 17 behind. But Solberg’s recovery started from further back, and he has the momentum of the most recent win.

What changed? Mainly consistency. In the first half of the season, Solberg’s speed was clear but his results were wild: a win, then crashes and retirements. From Estonia onwards he stopped throwing away points. Second places in Estonia and Finland, further points in Paraguay and then victory in Chile turned a disappointing season into a title challenge.

The first half shows why he was written off. Four rounds out of eight produced almost nothing: 10th in Kenya, 42nd in Croatia, a retirement on the Canaries and 21st in Japan, followed by 16th in Greece. In a championship that pays points only to the top ten, plus bonus points on Sunday and the Power Stage, results like that are very costly.

The second half shows why he’s back. Since Greece, he hasn’t had a bad weekend, and in Sardinia he’s leading the decider. That’s the difference between a fast young driver and a title contender. If you’re new to how rally points work, our guide to WRC strategy covers road position, tyres and tactics, all of which shape results on gravel.

Solberg led Rally Chile (10–13 September) from the opening stage on Friday and won by 16.6 seconds from Sébastien Ogier, with Adrien Fourmaux third. He also won the Power Stage, collecting 34 points in total. It was his first win since Monte Carlo in January.

The bigger swing came from Evans’ misfortune. The championship leader was running a comfortable second when he got a puncture on Sunday’s penultimate stage. Changing the wheel cost him more than two minutes and dropped him to fifth. He recovered some points with the second-fastest time on the Power Stage, but a weekend that should have strengthened his lead ended up keeping two rivals in contention. Pajari, after his three wins in a row, finished fourth.

Chile also settled the manufacturers’ championship. Toyota won its record-equalling 10th WRC constructors’ title, drawing level with Lancia. That matters for Sardinia: with the team title already won, Toyota doesn’t need to manage its drivers for points, and Evans, Pajari and Solberg are free to fight each other for the drivers’ crown.

With Rally Saudi Arabia running as a national event rather than a championship round, Rally Italia Sardegna is the final round of 2026. The maximum a driver can score is 35 points: 25 for the win, up to 5 for the Sunday classification and up to 5 for the Power Stage.

In simple terms, Solberg needs a near-perfect weekend and some trouble for Evans. If Solberg takes the maximum 35, Evans must score 14 or fewer, which in practice means a poor rally for Evans. Exact ties would go to countback, so the lines above are the minimum. Solberg also has to finish well ahead of Pajari, who is four points in front of him.

That looked like a lot to ask before the rally. But Solberg had just done exactly that in Chile, maximum points while Evans had a problem, and Sardinia’s rough, abrasive gravel stages regularly produce punctures and damage. By Saturday midday, that’s how it had played out: Evans stuck sweeping the road in sixth while Solberg led. In the end, one corner on the final stage decided it. Our full breakdown of every scenario is in Evans, Pajari or Solberg: every Sardinia permutation, and our explainer on WRC shakedown covers how the weekend starts.

Solberg was born on 23 September 2001 in Fredrikstad, Norway, so he turned 25 in September. He holds Swedish and Norwegian citizenship and competes under the Swedish flag. Rallying is the family business: his father, Petter Solberg, won the 2003 World Rally Championship, his mother Pernilla is a former rally driver, and his uncle Henning is a long-time WRC competitor.

His rise to a full-time Toyota seat came through WRC2. In 2025 he starred in the second-tier WRC2 championship in Toyota’s GR Yaris Rally2 while taking his first WRC overall victory at Rally Estonia in a one-off Rally1 outing. That performance helped earn him a full Toyota Rally1 programme for 2026, alongside co-driver Elliott Edmondson, the Briton who has sat beside him throughout.

If he wins in Sardinia, the Solbergs will have two world champions in the family, 23 years apart. It would also cap one of the most dramatic mid-season recoveries the championship has seen in years: from fifth and 59 points down in June to the title in October.

For a broader look at the form of every contender, see our WRC 2026 power rankings, and for where the sport goes next, WRC’s 2027 reset.