2021 World Rally Championship: Ogier's Eighth Title and Toyota's Manufacturers' Crown

Toyota and Hyundai fought a season-long battle for the manufacturers' title, and Ogier's eighth drivers' crown was not settled until the Monza finale. Kalle Rovanpera became the youngest driver to win a WRC event along the way. The year was shaped by a rebuilt calendar that replaced several rounds lost to the pandemic.

What was the 2021 World Rally Championship?

It was the forty-ninth season of the championship, contested for drivers', co-drivers' and manufacturers' titles. Only manufacturers using World Rally Cars homologated under the 2017 regulations could score manufacturer points, and Pirelli returned as the sole nominated tyre supplier.

Ogier and Ingrassia began the year as defending champions after their seventh titles at the 2020 Rally Monza. Hyundai were the defending manufacturers' champions, defending the title for a second consecutive year.

Five wins for Ogier, two each for Evans, Rovanpera and Neuville, and a Toyota team that won nine rallies out of twelve.

Why did the calendar change?

The 2020 cancellations forced a rebuilt programme. Rally Catalunya returned, run exclusively on tarmac for the first time since 2009, and Rally Croatia made its debut in Zagreb in place of Rally Mexico. Rally Deutschland was removed, while Finland and Portugal returned after a one-year absence.

Rally Chile was cancelled again because of travel restrictions, and the Acropolis Rally replaced it after a seven-year absence. Ypres Rally took the place of Rally GB, which had planned a move to Northern Ireland that fell through. The Safari Rally returned for the first time since 2002, and the Arctic Rally in northern Finland stood in for Rally Sweden.

The World Motorsport Council ruled that at least six rallies had to run before the titles could be awarded, after only seven of the thirteen planned 2020 events went ahead. Six reserve rounds, including Turkey, Argentina and Latvia, were kept ready in case of further cancellations.

Which teams and crews changed for 2021?

Hyundai kept Tanak and Jarveoja, but Neuville ended a ten-year partnership with Nicolas Gilsoul and took Martijn Wydaeghe as his co-driver. Sebastien Loeb left Hyundai to contest the Dakar Rally and the Extreme E electric series.

Ogier had announced that he would retire from full-time competition after 2020, but he renewed a one-year deal with Toyota, saying the shortened 2020 season was not how he wanted his career to end. Evans and Martin and Rovanpera with Halttunen stayed with the team, while Katsuta and Daniel Barritt ran a full-time fourth car.

Toyota abandoned a planned GR Yaris-based homologation special, citing the pandemic's effect on the car industry and the cost of developing a car for the 2022 regulations. Tommi Makinen stepped down as team principal to become the company's motorsport advisor, and Jari-Matti Latvala was named as his successor.

M-Sport ran Gus Greensmith in one car and a second car shared by Adrien Fourmaux and Teemu Suninen. Suninen quit the team by mid-season, and Fourmaux later changed co-driver to Alexandre Coria. Esapekka Lappi and Janne Ferm left M-Sport for the WRC2 team Movisport.

Round-by-round results

How did the opening rounds unfold?

Ogier and Ingrassia won Monte Carlo for their eighth victory there, a record, after a flat tyre had cost them the lead to their teammates. Tanak and Jarveoja led the Arctic Rally from start to finish, and Ogier then won Croatia by just 0.6 seconds.

Tanak and Jarveoja were ruled out of Monte Carlo after punctures left one wheel short of rubber, which made the car illegal to drive between stages. Suninen crashed on the first stage. Ogier and Ingrassia then set one fastest stage time after another to retake the lead, making them the first crew to win the rally in cars from five different manufacturers. Evans and Martin finished second for a Toyota one-two, and Neuville finished third with Wydaeghe, whose first podium of the championship it was.

The Arctic Rally was the championship's first visit inside the Arctic Circle. Rovanpera and Halttunen edged Neuville and Wydaeghe by 2.3 seconds for the runner-up spot and the Power Stage. That result made Rovanpera, at twenty, the youngest driver to lead the championship in the series' history. Ogier crashed into a snowbank 200 metres from the finish and limped home twentieth. The battle for second place on the final day shaped the early championship lead.

Croatia was the thirty-fourth country to host a WRC event. Rovanpera crashed on the first stage, and Ogier and Ingrassia won by 0.6 seconds, the third closest winning margin in WRC history after the 2011 Jordan Rally and the 2007 Rally New Zealand. The win also brought Ogier's 600th stage win. Toyota held a twenty-seven-point lead over Hyundai in the manufacturers' table after three rounds. Neuville and Wydaeghe led early after the Rovanpera crash, but an incorrect tyre choice and brake problems dropped them to third. Adrien Fourmaux and Renaud Jamoul made their World Rally Car debut for M-Sport and finished fifth.

Which rallies swung the middle of the season?

Evans and Martin won Portugal, their first win of the season, after Hyundai's crews ran into trouble. Ogier won Sardinia, and in Kenya the Safari Rally went to him after Neuville retired from the lead on the final day.

Portugal marked the championship's return to gravel after more than 200 days. Hyundai held 1-2-3 after Friday's morning loop, but Neuville and Wydaeghe damaged their rear-right suspension in an afternoon left-hander. Sordo and Borja Rozada finished second, and Katsuta earned a career-high fourth.

Sardinia was another weekend to forget for Hyundai. Tanak and Jarveoja and Sordo and Rozada both retired on Saturday with rear suspension damage. Ogier and Ingrassia won ahead of Evans and Martin, and the Toyota lead over Hyundai grew to forty-nine points.

The Safari Rally returned to Kenya after nineteen years, and its roads were as harsh as ever. Neuville and Wydaeghe, who had been leading, retired on the final day after a suspension collapse. Ogier and Ingrassia had once been down in seventh overall. Katsuta then led a WRC event for the first time in his career, but Ogier and Ingrassia overhauled him to win their fourth rally of the season, and they moved thirty-four points clear in the drivers' standings.

How did Estonia, Belgium and Greece shape the second half?

Rovanpera and Halttunen won Estonia for their maiden WRC victory, and they then won in Greece to extend Toyota's lead to fifty-seven points. Neuville and Wydaeghe won the Ypres Rally, which was the first career win for Wydaeghe.

Tanak and Jarveoja, keen to repeat the success they had enjoyed a year earlier, led Estonia until double punctures on Friday morning left them without enough spare wheels. Rovanpera won at 20 years and 290 days, eclipsing the 22 years and 313 days that Latvala had held as the youngest winner. Breen and Nagle finished second, their first podium of the season.

The Ypres Rally made Belgium the thirty-fifth country to host a WRC round. Its bridle paths and the Spa-Francorchamps circuit tested every crew, and local knowledge helped Neuville and Wydaeghe to an emotional home win. Breen and Nagle finished second again.

Greece hosted the Acropolis Rally for the first time after an eight-year absence. Rovanpera and Halttunen avoided major incidents, and Toyota extended its championship lead to fifty-seven points with only three rounds remaining. Finland followed on Rovanpera's twenty-first birthday, but he hit a large pile of gravel on Saturday morning and retired.

How was the Monza finale decided?

Ogier and Ingrassia won Monza, their fifth rally of the season, to take their eighth world title. They had led the standings with a healthy margin going into the finale. Toyota's nine wins from twelve rallies, against Hyundai's three, were enough to secure the manufacturers' crown for the Japanese team.

Evans and Martin passed Ogier on the first day of the finale, only to lose the lead again on the next morning loop. The top spot changed hands repeatedly before Ogier and Ingrassia held on. Sordo and Carrera finished on the podium after Neuville and Wydaeghe spun into a traffic barrier on Saturday.

Earlier in Spain, Neuville and Wydaeghe had won ten special stages to take their second win of the season, while Evans and Martin outscored Ogier to keep their title hopes alive. Ogier's engine stalled on Saturday's final test, which erased his gap to Sordo before it was overhauled on Sunday.

How did the 2021 standings finish?

Ogier and Ingrassia took their eighth title, Evans and Martin finished twenty-three points behind in second, and Neuville and Wydaeghe were third, a further thirty-one points back. Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT won the manufacturers' title with a fifty-nine-point lead over Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT, and M-Sport Ford WRT was third.

Toyota's advantage built steadily. After Monte Carlo the team led Hyundai by twenty-two points, a margin that grew to forty-nine after Sardinia and reached fifty-nine points by the end of the year. Manufacturers were awarded Power Stage bonus points for the first time in 2021.

How did the scoring system work?

Points went to the top ten classified finishers in each event. Manufacturers could nominate three crews, but only the best two results counted, and the Power Stage paid five points for first down to one for fifth.

A new World Rally Championship for Teams ran alongside the existing titles. A team could score only if a manufacturer with the same make of car had entered the rally, and it had to compete in at least seven rallies, one of them outside Europe.