Follow Toyota Gazoo Racing’s 2020 World Rally Championship campaign as our all-new driver line-up gets up-to-speed in the updated Toyota Yaris WRC. This page will be updated after every round.
2020 WRC: Round 1 – Rallye Monte-Carlo
Toyota Gazoo Racing’s all-new WRC driver line-up made a blistering start to the 2020 season. Rallye Monte-Carlo got underway with two tricky night stages that became progressively more hazardous. Sébastien Ogier won his very first stage in the Yaris WRC and ended the night in second overall. Elfyn Evans was only two places behind and top-level newcomer Kalle Rovanperä came in seventh.
Day two saw Ogier and Evans occupy first and second places on the leader board after both drivers enjoyed fantastic stints behind the wheel. Between them they won five of the day’s six stages, which set the scene for an extremely close, three-way fight for victory on day three.
Evans led into the final day’s four stages with a 4.9 second advantage over Ogier. But their third-placed rival was only 1.5 seconds behind and posted a string of fastest times to ultimately deny the Toyota duo.
Nevertheless, Ogier’s second-place finish represents a strong opening result for the season and for the French driver’s seventh world title bid. A third-place finish for Evans was the Welsh driver’s best achievement so far in Rallye Monte-Carlo, and 19-year-old Finnish driver Rovanperä (the youngest ever full-time factory driver in the WRC) rounded out a positive weekend with an impressively mistake-free and mature performance on his debut with Toyota.
| 2020 World Rally Championship – Toyota Gazoo Racing positions after Round 1 | ||
| 2 | Sébastien Ogier / Julien Ingrassia | + 12.6s |
| 3 | Elfyn Evans / Scott Martin | + 14.3s |
| 5 | Kalle Rovanperä / Jonne Halttunen | + 04m 17.2s |
2020 WRC: What’s next?
Round two is Rally Sweden. It is the championship’s only full winter event, held on snow and ice since it became a founding round of the series in 1973. It was the scene of the Yaris WRC’s maiden victory in 2017, with a win being repeated in 2019.
Learn more: Meet the new Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team drivers
