Drama Is Rally Croatia’s Middle Name

This weekend we saw World Rally Championship move to the port city of Rijeka after hosting its last event in Zagreb in 2024. This is your Round 4 of the 2026 season recap.

(Image credit to motorsport.com)

With Rally Croatia being compared to the safari with surface conditions being a mess and unpredictable stages, only three Rally 1 cars made it to the finish line without any crashes.

4.8 km into SS1 there was already an incident as we saw Oliver Solberg losing control of his car and sending it off the road, also ending his day very quickly and giving the chance for Elfyn Evans to take the lead.

Former championship leader Elfyn Evans made a strong start to the rally, winning the opening two stages to open a lead of 15.8 seconds over  Sami Pajari, then on SS3 Evans crashed out, making it the end of the day very quickly for him, when being interviewed by WRC journalist Elfyn stated:  “The corner was a bit tighter than expected and we were way too fast and we went off into the trees, unfortunately. It is very disappointing.” Jon Armstrong was praised for a seriously impressive and surprising start to the Croatia rally and earned his black horse status, but that soon ended as he damaged his car when hitting a curb in SS4.

The leaderboard at the end of Day 1 for Rally 1 was:

1. Sami Pajari / Marko Salminen

2. Thierry Neuville / Martijn Wydaeghe

3. Takamoto Katsuta / Aaron Johnston

4. Hayden Paddon / John Kennard

5. Adrien Fourmaux / Alexandre Coria 

6. Joshua McErlean / Eoin Treacy

Sami Pajari moves up as the new rally leader that nobody expected, and stayed in the front throughout the morning but the afternoon changed everything for him. Pajari had gotten tyre damage roughly 3.6 km into SS14, forcing Sami to stop and change a wheel, losing over two minutes and losing the lead, which meant Neuville was now the rally leader. Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux, lost the rear of his car in the final stage of the loop and clattered a pole and the impact caused him to retire immediately. McErlean continued to have bad luck as he had a fire in his cockpit in SS10, he and his co-driver, Treacy lost seven minutes putting out the fire.

The leaderboard for Day 2 of Rally 1 was:

1. Thierry Neuville / Martijn Wydaeghe

2. Takamoto Katsuta / Aaron Johnston

3. Sami Pajari / Marko Salminen

4. Hayden Paddon / John Kennard

5. Joshua McErlean / Eoin Treacy

For the last day of Rally Croatia, it was looking like Neuville was going to take the first win of the season for Hyundai, but all hope was crushed when into the last stage of the rally he lost control of his car and hit a concrete block damaging his front right suspension, leaving Katsuta and co driver Johnston to claim a second successful WRC back to back win with him winning in the last rally in the Safari.

(Image credit to @World Rally Championship on Facebook)

At the end of the final day the podium for Rally 1 was:

1. Takamoto Katsuta / Aaron Johnston

2. Sami Pajari / Marko Salminen

3. Hayden Paddon / John Kennard - making it Paddon’s 9th podium in his career in WRC

All eyes now shift to the Rally Islas Canarias, where the action resumes and the championship fight gets tighter with every event. 

Article written by Laura Anna Moron