Rally Japan – SS7: Oliver Solberg sets the fastest time, gaining a few seconds on Elfyn Evans

A marathon day awaits the competitors on this Rally The seventh round of the 2026 World Rally Championship is underway in Japan. Crews will not be stopping at the service area this afternoon, instead finding a Tire Fitting Zone at Enakyo Park. Consequently, everyone must approach the morning loop with extreme caution, as mechanical interventions on the cars will be extremely limited throughout the day. As expected, all competitors set off this morning from... Toyota with five Hard tires, therefore only one spare tire.

This did not prevent Oliver Solberg and Elliott Edmondson from launching a first attack on Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin: the Swedish-British duo set the fastest time on the seventh special stage of the rally, 3,2 seconds ahead of the leaders in the provisional overall standings. Sébastien Ogier and Vincent Landais, who set the 3rd fastest time, see their gap with the race leader grow to 18,7 seconds.

Frustrated yesterday by a completely wasted day, Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston went back on the attack this morning, setting the 4th fastest time on the special stage, ahead of Sami Pajari – Marko Salminen, Adrien fourmaux – Alexandre Coria or even Thierry Neuville – Martijn Wydaeghe. In WRC2, Nikolay Gryazin set the fastest time on the stage, closing a significant portion of the gap to Alejandro Cachón in the overall standings, but also made a mistake on this stage, damaging a wheel. The Bulgarian, like most of his competitors, started with five wheels and therefore only has one spare: he can no longer afford any mistakes before the end of the loop if he wants to maintain his chances of climbing back up the championship standings.

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