Rally Japan – SS4: Oliver Solberg sets the fastest time, Sébastien Ogier stays close

For his last rally on asphalt with the Yaris Rally1, Toyota is keen to shine on home soil. And the Japanese are, for the moment, all alone on their planet! Oliver Solberg set his second fastest time of the day. Very comfortable on the Asuke stage, the Swede dominated the second run, just as he had in SS1 where he was also fastest.

However, the overall lead remains with Elfyn Evans. The Welshman holds a comfortable 15-second advantage over his Swedish teammate after finishing third in the stage, 2,6 seconds behind Solberg. Between them is... Sébastien OgierThe Gapençais driver clocked the second fastest time in SS4 and made up some of the ground on Elfyn Evans, on whom he is now “only” 18 seconds behind.

The Toyota trio continues its solo run ahead of the Hyundai de Thierry NeuvilleThe 2024 world champion is currently just off the podium, already 33 seconds behind the leader. It's even more complicated for Adrien fourmauxwho had to settle for 7th place overall, conceding 57,6 seconds to Elfyn Evans. The slight disappointment came from local favorite Takamoto Katsuta. The Japanese rider, who dreams of winning on home soil after his first two victories this season, is only 6th overall, 48,7 seconds behind the leader.

Note also that in WRC2, Alejandro Cachón has taken the lead in his Toyota Yaris Rally2, 1,7 seconds ahead of the Lancia Ypsilon Rally2 of Bulgarian Nikolay Gryazin, who was leading before SS4. The battle between the two is expected to be close.

WRC – Rally Japan 
The classification of SS4

The general classification after SS4