Ranking the top 10 WRC drivers of 2025

The 2025 World Rally Championship season will forever be remembered as the year Sebastien Ogier notched up a close-to-perfect campaign to lift a record-matching ninth world title.

Ogier’s historic triumph aside, there was no shortage of standout drives and mesmerising performances from a 14-round season, which featured three brand-new events in the Canary Islands, Paraguay and Saudi Arabia.

Six crews called themselves winners this year while nine pairings enjoyed visits to the podium in a season where seemingly anything was possible.

10. Martins Sesks - M-Sport-Ford

Photo by: McKlein Photography / LAT Images via Getty Images

Wins: 0
Total podiums: 0
Stage wins: 5
Championship position: 12th

After bursting onto the WRC scene in 2024, when he claimed stage wins and almost a podium on home soil, there was plenty of hype surrounding Martins Sesks in 2025 after his performance landed a seven-round programme with M-Sport-Ford.

Competing in several rallies that were new territory, Sesks was unable to regularly show the speed that had turned heads in 2024. There were also mistakes, the most eye-catching coming in Sardinia and resulting in a violent roll.

However, the Latvian rediscovered his form at the final event of the year in Saudi Arabia. Sesks produced scintillating speed in brutal gravel conditions, claiming five stage wins that put the 26-year-old in a titanic fight for victory. Sesks appeared on course to at least snare a first WRC podium, having started the penultimate stage only two seconds adrift of leader Thierry Neuville.

But Sesks and M-Sport were cruelly denied a podium when his Ford Puma suffered a double puncture followed by an engine failure. The drive was the most impressive from any M-Sport driver in 2025 and proved Sesks’ talent as one of the WRC’s brightest youngsters.

9. Takamoto Katsuta - Toyota

Photo by: M-Sport

Wins: 0
Stage wins: 16
Total podiums: 2 (2nd in Sweden, Finland)
Championship position: 6th

Once again it proved to be a season of highs and lows for Takamoto Katsuta. In 2025 the Japanese driver came the closest to finally scoring a maiden WRC win, only to be denied by Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans by a mere 3.8s in Sweden. Katsuta had snatched the lead away from Evans on the final day, only to lose the advantage to the Welshman.

Katsuta secured a fourth second-place finish of his career in Finland, which marked only the second time the Toyota driver had scored two podiums in a WRC season since he stepped up to the top tier in 2020. There is no doubt that at times Katsuta had the speed to match the very best, claiming 16 stage wins across the year, but again finding a balance between speed and consistency – avoiding costly errors – proved a challenge.

Perhaps the most notable example of this came on home soil in Japan when Katsuta was locked in a fight for victory, sitting 5.2s adrift of leader Sebastien Ogier after 10 stages. A mistake in stage 11 resulted in a collision with water-filled plastic barriers, which caused damage to his GR Yaris that ended any hopes of victory.

8. Sami Pajari - Toyota

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Wins: 0
Total podiums: 1 (3rd in Japan)
Stage wins: 7
Championship position: 8th

Sami Pajari delivered a very strong maiden full season in Rally1 after stepping up to Toyota’s line-up following a run to the 2024 WRC2 crown.

The Finn scored points in 12 of the 14 rounds in what was a season of two halves. Pajari retired from two of the first four events, scoring 32 points from the first seven events, highlighted by a run to fourth in Safari Rally Kenya.

In the second half of the year, the 24-year-old found his stride, delivering both speed and consistency, finishing the final seven rallies inside the top seven. The run included a deserved maiden podium finish in Japan, which only seemed to inspire Pajari further. In the Saudi Arabia season finale, he was again locked in a podium fight on merit, and was even a contender for victory before a puncture. Pajari racked up 75 points from the final seven rounds, 43 points more than he achieved in the first seven events.

Judging by the way Pajari ended the year, he could become a perennial contender for podiums in 2026.

7. Thierry Neuville - Hyundai

Photo by: Massimo Bettiol - Getty Images

Wins: 1 (Saudi Arabia)
Total podiums: 5 (1st in Saudi Arabia; 3rd in Sweden, Kenya, Estonia, Paraguay)
Stage wins: 17
Championship position: 5th

Thierry Neuville’s WRC title defence proved to be a season to forget for the Belgian as he struggled to replicate the form he delivered to win the 2024 crown. Neuville even admitted that he lost a bit of faith and fighting spirit, which is unheard of for a driver known for his never-give-up attitude.

This was down to a number of reasons. The world champion found it difficult to unlock the speed from the new Hankook tyres and was top of the list when it came to suffering punctures during the year.

Hyundai also struggled to get the best out of its heavily upgraded ‘Evo’ i20 N Rally1 car that had made strides on fast gravel events but had gone backwards on asphalt rallies. There were also several reliability concerns and changes in the team structure that contributed to a difficult campaign.

The lack of speed is perhaps best highlighted by the fact Neuville scored 50 stage wins in 2024 and only 17 in 2025. Neuville came close to becoming the first world champion since Richard Burns in 2002 to end a title defence without a victory, before claiming Hyundai’s second win of the year in the Saudi Arabia season finale.

Despite enduring a season to forget, Neuville still managed to reel off five podiums, only one shy of what he recorded for his 2024 title.

6. Adrien Fourmaux - Hyundai

Photo by: Vincent Thuillier / Hyundai Motorsport

Wins: 0
Total podiums: 4 (2nd in Saudi Arabia; 3rd at Monte Carlo, Greece, Chile)
Stage wins: 24
Championship position: 7th

Adrien Fourmaux has a strong case for being the signing of the season. The former M-Sport-Ford driver seemed to slot into his new home at Hyundai with ease and was quickly able to match and beat his more experienced team-mates Thierry Neuville and Ott Tanak.

Fourmaux’s speed was never in question – he racked up 24 stages wins (seven more than Neuville) and was often found leading the way for Hyundai in events. The 30-year-old also came close to finally securing a maiden WRC win on several occasions, only for misfortune to strike in the form of reliability problems and unfortunate mistakes. He can certainly feel hard done by after technical issues outside of his control struck in Kenya and Portugal, and rain hit at the worst possible moment while he was fighting for a podium in Paraguay.

Fourmaux did let his emotions get the better of him in Sweden and Sardinia when mistakes led to further errors. But to his credit he addressed the weakness and sought the advice from a sports psychologist, and his attitude and approach to events noticeably improved. His positivity in adversity hugely helped a beleaguered Hyundai team, which made him stand out in 2025. Hyundai team principal Cyril Abiteboul labelled Fourmaux as the "shining light" in what proved to be a difficult 2025 for the team.

A maiden win is surely around the corner for Fourmaux after he was denied a promising chance to stand on the top of the podium in Saudi Arabia due to a penalty for checking in early while leading.

5. Oliver Solberg - Printsport Racing/Toyota

Photo by: Toyota Racing

Wins: 1 (Estonia)
Total podiums: 1 in WRC (1st in Estonia), 5 in WRC2
Stage wins: 9 in WRC, 69 in WRC2
Championship position: 9th - WRC2 champion

Oliver Solberg proved he belonged in the WRC’s top tier after a stunning campaign, which included a contender for drive of the year with one of the best performances in recent WRC history.

The Swede and co-driver Elliott Edmondson dominated the WRC’s second tier, winning five of their seven points-scoring rounds to seal the crown in Chile, with three events to spare. Solberg’s dominance was emphasised by being the fastest Rally2 driver in nine of the 14 events, while claiming a whopping 69 WRC2 stage wins.

Prior to sealing the WRC2 title, Solberg and Edmondson delivered the shock of the season by claiming a deserved and stunning maiden outright WRC win in Estonia, in a one-off drive in Toyota’s Rally1 squad. The pair rattled off nine stage victories on Estonia’s fast gravel stages to win with a relatively comfortable 25.2s margin over Ott Tanak.

Solberg's speed has never been in question, but in 2025 he added a new level of maturity that helped take him to another level: he displayed all the attributes required to be successful in rallying’s top tier moving forward.

A near-perfect 2025 has been rewarded with a full-time Rally1 drive with Toyota next year, replacing Kalle Rovanpera.

4. Kalle Rovanpera - Toyota

Photo by: Toyota Racing

Wins: 3 (Canary Islands, Finland, Central Europe)
Total podiums: 5 (1st in the Canary Islands, Finland, Central Europe; 3rd in Portugal, Sardinia)
Stage wins: 53
Championship position: 3rd

On paper, 2025 will go down as one of Kalle Rovanpera’s poorer seasons in the championship, but still he was able to dig deep to summon up an unlikely title fight, which showed the Finn’s class when his back is against the wall.

For large parts of the season Rovanpera looked unusually lost as he struggled to understand and extract speed from the new Hankook tyres. This was most evident in Estonia, where he was resigned to a distant fourth in a rally he usually dominates.

But when he did gel with the rubber, he was untouchable, leading to dominant wins for Toyota in the Canary Islands, Finland and Central Europe. The victory in Finland, on reflection, will perhaps go down as one of his greatest.

At the time he secretly knew it would be his last home WRC round for the foreseeable future, having decided that a switch to single-seaters was on the horizon for 2026. Despite the mounting pressure of delivering a maiden home win, Rovanpera dug deep and drove in an unnatural way that ultimately led to victory igniting the title fight – which he took to the final round, which had seemed unlikely in mid-season.

This wasn’t a vintage season from the Finn, who did make some errors, but 53 stage wins from a package he largely couldn’t get on with was still mightily impressive.

3. Ott Tanak - Hyundai

Photo by: Romain Thuillier / Hyundai Motorsport

Wins: 1 (Greece)
Total podiums: 6 (1st in Greece; 2nd in Kenya, Portugal and Sardinia; 3rd in Central Europe)
Stage wins: 56
Championship position: 4th

Ott Tanak was among the few drivers able to beat eventual champion Sebastien Ogier in a head-to-head fight, doing so in a Hyundai lacking the speed and reliability of the Toyota. Tanak was able to claim 56 stage wins, only four shy of Ogier’s season-best tally, proving that he is still arguably the fastest driver pound for pound in the WRC.

Tanak even led the title race after Rally Estonia, joining Evans and Ogier as the only drivers to head the standings during the 14-round season.

After being denied by a power steering failure while leading in Portugal and missing out on victory by 7.9s in Sardinia, Tanak managed to beat Ogier in a head-to-head to claim what was Hyundai’s first win of the year in Greece.

An engine failure in Chile dealt a body blow to Tanak’s title bid, but the Estonian remained in contention until the penultimate round.

Tanak’s incredible speed will be missed next year as he takes a sabbatical. But in 2025 the 38-year-old outlined he still has the skills to overcome any hurdle and challenge the WRC's elite.

2. Elfyn Evans - Toyota

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Wins: 2 (Sweden, Kenya)
Total podiums: 8 (1st in Sweden, Kenya; 2nd at Monte Carlo, Paraguay, Chile, Central Europe, Japan; 3rd in the Canary Islands)
Stage wins: 24
Championship position: 2nd

The history books will forever say 2025 was the year Elfyn Evans became a five-time WRC runner-up, but in truth it was his best campaign so far.

Evans led the championship for most of the season, having made a blistering start with wins in Sweden and Kenya after finishing second to Ogier in Monte Carlo. This rapid start gave the Toyota driver a record points lead after three events.

Evans once again displayed a meticulous and smart approach to events that ultimately yielded results. The Welshman was the WRC’s most consistent driver, finishing every event inside the top six, avoiding any major setbacks across a year, which is an incredibly rare feat.

Such success at the start of the year meant Evans had to open the road during the summer gravel rallies, which proved costly for his title bid. He sat at the top of the standings after 10 of the 14 rounds.

Ultimately, he lacked the cutting edge in the crunch head-to-head fights with Ogier, and was unable to deny his team-mate a ninth title, losing out at the final round by four points.

Evans himself admitted that he will need to be more ruthless moving forward to ensure he lands a coveted title that he thoroughly deserves.

1. Sebastien Ogier - Toyota

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Wins: 6 (Monte Carlo, Portugal, Sardinia, Paraguay, Chile, Japan)
Total podiums: 10 (1st at Monte Carlo, Portugal, Sardinia, Paraguay, Chile, Japan; 2nd in the Canary Islands, Greece; 3rd in Finland, Saudi Arabia)
Stage wins: 60
Championship position: 1st

Sebastien Ogier produced arguably the best season of his WRC career to date to equal Sebastien Loeb as a nine-time world champion, and assert himself for many as the greatest rally driver of all time.

The feat is even more impressive considering Ogier and co-driver Vincent Landais contested only 11 of the 14 rounds and were up against Elfyn Evans, Kalle Rovanpera, Ott Tanak and defending champion Thierry Neuville, all running full-season programmes. It meant a perfect campaign would be required to claim a title that Ogier had no intention of targeting at the start of the year.

But the performances and numbers that Ogier, now 42, produced were phenomenal and showed he’s still at the top of his game. The Frenchman won six rallies, three more than any of his rivals, and topped the stage win tally with 60.

In the 11 events he contested, Ogier finished on the podium 10 times, with his only costly ‘mistake’ being a crash caused by a puncture while fighting for the lead at the Central European Rally. Such an incredible run meant Ogier ended the year scoring an average 26.6 points per round, six more than title runner-up and team-mate Evans.

It certainly wasn’t an easy season. Ogier came under pressure from Evans, who led the championship most of the way, and Hyundai driver Tanak, who also pushed him to the limit in duels in Portugal and Sardinia. But Ogier was always able to find an edge in these battles and maximised his points tally, taking perfect 35-point wins in Chile and Japan, the latter including a Power Stage win by 0.09s over Evans.

In the crunch title decider in Saudi Arabia, Evans, who held a three-point lead into the event, couldn’t match Ogier, allowing his team-mate to finish third, which was enough to seal the title by four points. Ogier will return in 2026, where he is set to contest 10 rounds, and will likely be in the title mix again if his form continues.

Photo by: Toyota Racing