Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team will raise the pace when Rally Estonia hosts round nine of the 2026 FIA World Rally Championship this week (17-19 July), the first of two back-to-back events on fast gravel roads in northern Europe.
Following last month’s rough and rocky Acropolis Rally Greece, drivers can now look forward to testing their skills on smoother and quicker roads, with Rally Estonia to be followed just two weeks later by Rally Finland, the fastest round of the WRC and a home rally for TGR-WRT.
All five TGR-WRT drivers, who currently fill the top five places in the championship, will compete in Estonia. Elfyn Evans is the current championship leader with an advantage of 11 points over Takamoto Katsuta, who is set to reach the milestone of 100 WRC events in Estonia.
Reigning champion Sébastien Ogier climbed to third in the standings, 37 points from the lead, with victory in Greece. He returns to compete on Estonian roads for the first time since 2021.
The team’s youngest drivers, Finland’s Sami Pajari and Sweden’s Oliver Solberg, both feel at home on fast gravel stages. Solberg scored a sensational victory in Estonia one year ago on his debut in the GR YARIS Rally1 car.
More up-and-coming talent will be on display in the WRC support categories in Estonia, where seven cars will compete as part of the TGR WRC Challenge Program.
WRC2 regular Yuki Yamamoto – on strong form after a first podium at Rally Japan and Power Stage win in Greece – will be joined by three drivers making their debuts in the category after building experience on a variety of European rallies so far this year aboard GR Yaris Rally2 cars: Japanese prospects Shotaro Goto and Takumi Matsushita and Estonian talent Jaspar Vaher, who takes on his home rally fresh from outright victory in the recent Finnish championship round in Jyväskylä.
Two more Japanese drivers, Rio Ogata and Kanta Yanaguida, make their debuts in the WRC3 category for Rally3 cars, where Japanese co-driver Tomiya Maekawa also lines up alongside Jarkko Nikara.
A total of 14 GR Yaris Rally2 drivers feature on the entry list, including the new WRC2 championship leader Roope Korhonen and fellow Finn Teemu Suninen, who won on his last start in Portugal. They are joined by Gus Greensmith, Bernhard ten Brinke, Tuukka Kauppinen and Johannes Keferböck plus four more Estonian drivers: Egon Kaur, Karl Martin Volver, Joosep Ralf Nõgene and Urmo Aava.
Rally Estonia is known for its wide and flowing roads that feature crests and large jumps, but the route also includes narrow and technical sections where the soft and sandy surface can become heavily rutted by the second pass of each stage. The rally is based in the country’s second largest city, Tartu – around two hours south-east of the capital Tallinn – and runs to a more compact format this year which packs 187 competitive miles into just over 48 hours.
After shakedown on Friday morning, the rally begins in the afternoon with a trio of gravel stages south of Tartu run twice either side of a tyre-fitting zone in Tehvandi, before a street stage in Elvi rounds out the day. Saturday features two stages to the north run twice prior to mid-day service in Tartu and another two stages to the south run twice in the afternoon, while a super special stage adjacent to the service park ends the day. Two passes of the Kääriku stage, the longest of the rally at 15.1 miles, round out the rally on Sunday.
Juha Kankkunen Deputy Team Principal said, “As a team we always look forward to this part of the season and these very fast rallies in Estonia and Finland. Of course, Finland is our home rally, but Estonia is also a place where we have a good history and a good record. The Acropolis Rally was all about managing the tyres, but Estonia should be more of a flat-out fight. All of our drivers enjoy driving on fast roads and can be strong there; Oliver took an amazing win there last year, and Taka and Sami are both on very good form. For Elfyn, it should be easier to compete from first on the road, while Seb hasn’t driven this event for many years, but he will be motivated after his win in Greece.”
Elfyn Evans (added, “Greece was a challenging event for us but we can look forward to something completely different on much faster roads in Estonia and Finland. It’s important to find a good feeling and prepare the car as well as possible for these events, and it was helpful to drive a national rally in Estonia last week to get used to the highest speeds once again. If it’s very dry then there can still be some cleaning for us to do, but we just need to focus on doing our best whatever conditions we face.”
