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With hybrid unit gone and new Hankook tires, season began with many drivers trying to find their feet with new balance in the car. Hankook tyre was a control tyre, meaning everyone was with same rubber but some struggled more than others. Elfyn Evans seemed to find the pace quickest and after third round, he already had two wins and second place, a good 35 point lead over second placed Thierry Neuville. From then on, running first on road was continual hindrance to Evans and his lead shrunk and shrunk until after Estonia, Tanak had went past.
Evans managed to regain championship lead after next event but by then, Sebastien Ogier had sniffed a potential for a title. He had began season with partial programme, skipping three out of first eight events. But on those five events he had either won (three times) or been second. He added events to his programme, collecting three more wins and two third places from the rest of the events. Such winning rate is astonishing and actually winning championship without competiting on all events is unbelievable. This was his ninth drivers' title, now equal with Sebastien Loeb.
Neuville was reigning world champion but his season, almost on all events, was quite lacklustre. He collected only five podium finishes out of which just one was a win. Ott Tanak fared marginally better, collecting six podiums (including one win). Both of them were far behind three Toyota drivers in the points at the end of the season, a disappointment.
In regards of other drivers, Adrien Fourmaux had departed from M-Sport to drive 2025 season with Hyundai. He fared well with his new team, even came close to a maiden win, but his departure left M-Sport without any good drivers barring several exceptional outings by Martins Sesks who only had handful drives apparently funded outside of M-Sport umbrella.
Oliver Solberg scored a unexpected first win in Rally Estonia, driving a last-minute Rally1 entry. It was also Toyota's 100th WRC win. Speculations began immediately, many expected him to be signed with Toyota and when Rovanpera's departure from team left one seat available, it was no surprise that Toyota indeed selected Oliver for that seat.
In shocking news, 9th of October Kalle Rovanpera announced his retirement from WRC at the end of 2025 to try his hand in single-seater racing. Exactly one month later, 9th of November, Ott Tanak revealed that he will retire from WRC at the end of the season. As Hyundai had not nominated Tanak for manufacturer points in last three final rounds of the season, speculations whether this was indication of change of this sort were in the air already before news came out.
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Calendar was expanded to fourteen events with three completely new events (Canarias, Paraguay and Saudi Arabia) and Estonia making a return. Croatia, Poland and Latvia were dropped to make room for these changes.
Control tyre is now manufactured by Hankook (was Pirelli). In public, drivers were polite but the gist was that Hankook tyres weren't very good, compared to Pirelli.
Cars no longer have hybrid unit, instead are powered solely by traditional 1.6 litre combustion engine. No new Rally1 cars debuted apart from this change and finetuning existing concepts.
Points scoring scheme was refined, with more points scored for overall position and separate Saturday points being dropped. Super Sunday remains but with fewer points.
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2025 FIA World Champions: Sebastien Ogier and Vincent Landais
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Drivers scoring their
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first win
O. Solberg (Estonia)
first drivers' point
A. Cachon Rodriguez (Canarias)
R. Dapra (Sardinia)
J. Cerny (Central Eur. Rally)
first stage win
G. Munster (Monte Carlo)
O. Solberg (Estonia)
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