2025 FIA World Rally Championship / Round 01 / Rallye Monte Carlo 2025 / 22-26 January 2025. Worldwide Copyright: Toyota GAZOO Racing WRT
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 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.
Toyota Gazoo Racing Team Principal Jari-Matti Latvala was pleased with the team’s effort.
“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,” Latvala said.
“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.”
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 running on Hankook tyres for the first time.
Car 33’s driver, Elfyn Evans, admitted that it was a struggle.
“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.”
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 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 teammate Kalle Rovanperä and their fellow two-time champion Carlos Sainz as the drivers who have achieved the most WRC victories for Toyota.
Ogier said he was “incredibly happy and proud” with this perfect start to the year for the team.
“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.”
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.