Sami Pajari ends Friday of the 2026 Rally Croatia with a 13.7-second lead over Thierry Neuville and Takamoto Katsuta 0.9 seconds further back, though Toyota Gazoo Racing paid a high price in the morning as Elfyn Evans and Oliver Solberg retired within the first four stages, leaving the team with two of its four cars out of competition just as the rally was beginning.

Evans won two stages and retired on the third

Elfyn Evans, championship leader with 66 points, started first on the road and took advantage of the cleaner asphalt to win SS1 and SS2 with a 15.8-second advantage over Pajari. On the third stage, Beram–Cerovlje, he entered a right-hand corner too fast, finding it tighter than the notes indicated, and ended up in the trees. The GR Yaris Rally1 was out, and Evans will re-enter on Saturday with a time penalty.

"It basically caught us out. The corner was a bit tighter than we expected and we were coming in too fast," Evans explained. "It's very disappointing. It was a strong start and things were going well, but it didn't end so well."

Photo By Red Bull Content Pool

Oliver Solberg didn't even complete the first stage. Five kilometers in, he touched a wall with the rear of the car, spun, and ended up stranded on the other side of the road. Solberg had not used the hard tire in rally conditions before and admitted he misjudged the available grip on his first dry asphalt outing in a Rally1 car. He will also re-enter on Saturday, though for both drivers the realistic fight is limited to Super Sunday points.

Toyota lost two cars in one morning, again

In Kenya, just three weeks ago, Evans, Solberg, and Sébastien Ogier retired on Saturday morning due to different mechanical issues, and Katsuta moved into the lead to win his first world rally. In Croatia, the causes were driver errors rather than mechanical failures, but the result is similar, and Toyota once again finds itself with half its lineup out of the rally before the end of the first day.

Pajari won two of Friday's eight stages — SS4 in the morning and the closing Učka stage in the afternoon — and in the other six, he stayed between the second and third fastest times without going off the road or puncturing. It is the first time he has ended a Friday leading a WRC round.

"It's been very tricky out there today, and already in the morning we could see how easy it was to make a mistake. I didn't feel completely comfortable at the beginning, but I think we were able to run with a smart and consistent pace, and that paid off. In the afternoon, I felt things were much more under control and I could enjoy it more."

Photo By Red Bull Content Pool

Neuville's Hyundai doesn't rotate, and Katsuta finished 14.6 seconds back

Neuville won two consecutive stages in the afternoon, SS6 and SS7, cutting Pajari's lead to 6.3 seconds, but on the final stage he lost more than seven seconds and finished 13.7 seconds behind. The issue is the Hyundai i20 N Rally1, which isn't giving him the rotation he needs to exit corners well. "Understeering like crazy. I can't get the rotation to have a good corner exit," Neuville admitted mid-day, and although the pace improved in the afternoon, the understeer did not disappear.

Katsuta, coming off his win at the Safari Rally Kenya, braked on SS1 when he came upon Solberg's stranded car and lost time on that stage, but he chipped away stage by stage to finish 14.6 seconds behind Pajari. He has 55 points in the championship, 11 fewer than Evans.

Photo By Red Bull Content Pool

Fourmaux and both M-Sport cars lost time with punctures

Hayden Paddon finished fourth, 1:15.0 behind, a large gap but reasonable for someone competing part-time with Hyundai and who had never participated in this rally before. Adrien Fourmaux lost more than a minute with a right-front puncture on SS2 and spent the rest of the afternoon recovering ground to finish fifth.

Jon Armstrong was running third overall on SS1 in one of the two M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 cars, but he punctured on SS2 and his rally ended on SS4 when he went off and hit a wall. Josh McErlean, in the other Puma, was on his way to a solid result until he punctured on SS7 and fell to more than three and a half minutes behind Pajari.

Photo By Red Bull Content Pool

Eight new stages in Istria, and Saturday promises worse

The rally moved from Zagreb to Rijeka for this edition, and Friday's eight stages on the Istria peninsula were all new to the drivers. The asphalt lost grip as cars cut across dirt on the banks and dragged stones onto the racing line, and those changing conditions explain much of the punctures and offs during the day. Saturday brings eight more stages, 115 timed kilometers, and according to several drivers, it is the toughest day of the week.

In WRC2, Yohan Rossel finished Friday first in class in his Lancia Ypsilon HF Rally2, followed by his teammate Nikolay Gryazin 22.1 seconds behind and Alejandro Cachón in third.

Photo By Red Bull Content Pool

WRC Friday - Croatia Rally 2026

POS	#	Driver/COdriver	team	brand	car	time
1	5	Sami PAJARI Marko SALMINEN	Toyota Gazoo Racing Wrt2	Toyota	Gr Yaris Rally1	1:05:28.3
2	11	Thierry NEUVILLE Martijn WYDAEGHE	Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team	Hyundai	I20 N Rally1	+ 06.3
3	18	Takamoto KATSUTA Aaron JOHNSTON	Toyota Gazoo Racing Wrt	Toyota	Gr Yaris Rally1	+ 11.0
4	20	Hayden PADDON John KENNARD	Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team	Hyundai	I20 N Rally1	+ 1:03.8
5	16	Adrien FOURMAUX Alexandre CORIA	Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team	Hyundai	I20 N Rally1	+ 1:46.5
6	55	Joshua MCERLEAN Eoin TREACY	M-sport Ford World Rally Team	Ford	Puma Rally1	+ 3:39.5
7	95	Jon ARMSTRONG Shane BYRNE	M-sport Ford World Rally Team	Ford	Puma Rally1	+ 40:15.4
8	33	Elfyn EVANS Scott MARTIN	Toyota Gazoo Racing Wrt	Toyota	Gr Yaris Rally1	+ 49:34.5
9	99	Oliver SOLBERG Elliott EDMONDSON	Toyota Gazoo Racing Wrt	Toyota	Gr Yaris Rally1	+ 69:34.5