Rally Japan - 2nd Day -2nd Loop: Evans responds to Ogier's early push as Solberg crashes out from 2nd place [+video]

At the end of Saturday afternoon, Elfyn Evans is still leading Rally Japan with Sebastien Ogier and Sami Pajari following him.

Elfyn Evans extends his rally lead over the second Sebastien Ogier to 20 seconds by setting the fastest time in Stage 12 and being faster than him in Stage 11. However, the Welshman lost some seconds in Stage 10 as he was forced to pass Oliver Solberg's car after his accident.

Sebastien Ogier moved up to second position overall after Stage 10 and was the fastest driver there while he believes that he is not able to catch Evans on the leaderboard.

Sami Pajari is now in the podium positions and sits in third place overall while he was the fastest driver in Stage 11. In fact, the Finn driver was faster than the fourth Takamoto Katsuta in all stages of Saturday morning and was able to keep him behind on the classification.

Adrien Fourmaux is now fifth overall and is the top driver for Hyundai Motorsport as Thierry Neuville establishes his sixth position as he continued to have handbrake issues on Saturday afternoon.

Hayden Paddon and Jon Armstrong complete the top eight.

Josh McErlean remains outside the top ten, but is now eleventh overall.

Oliver Solberg was in second position overall at the end of Stage 9, but he had a crash in Stage 11 when he went wide and hit a pole. This had an impact to the rear right side as the wheel was off the car which was beached partly off road.

 

🚨 ACCIDENTE y ABANDONO para Oliver SOLBERG en el SS10 del #RallyJapan 🇯🇵

Solberg venia P2 a 10s de Evans.#WRC pic.twitter.com/DQxFf5m1Lt

— diego (@DiegoteSimracer) May 30, 2026

 

Watch below the stage times:

Watch below the overall classification after Stage 12:

Photo Credits: Toyota