WRC 3
Mid-season review: Fontana leads WRC3 at halfway
Matteo Fontana reaches the halfway point of the 2026 FIA World Rally Championship season at the head of the WRC3 standings.
That much feels familiar. The route there has been anything but.
The reigning champion has won twice, made history in Rally3 machinery and returned to the top of the points table after briefly losing control of the championship lead. But his title defence has also included restarts, lost time, missed chances and a chasing pack that has refused to go away.
After seven rounds, Fontana leads on 75 points, with Gil Membrado second on 66 and Ghjuvanni Rossi third on 55. Ali Türkkan sits fourth on 46, just ahead of Raúl Hernández on 45.
In WRC3, that picture needs context. Crews can nominate a maximum of seven rallies on which to score points, with their best six results counting towards the final classification. It means the battle is not only about who has scored heavily so far, but also who has used which events and where the next big score can still come from.
For Fontana, the first half has been a title defence built on recovery as much as control.
His Rallye Monte-Carlo was the clearest example. Eric Royère claimed victory, but Fontana produced the headline moment of the weekend when he became the first Rally3 driver to set an overall fastest time on a WRC stage. He did it on Sunday morning, then repeated the feat on the very next stage.
The conditions helped. Snow and ice slowed the earlier runners, leaving Fontana with a cleaner line from further down the road order. But the achievement was still remarkable, and it gave his season immediate momentum despite a messy rally.
Fontana had already lost time with offs on Thursday and Friday night and had to restart twice. Royère began Sunday with more than 12 minutes in hand and still won, but Fontana cut that gap to 3min 59.1sec by the finish and salvaged second place points from a weekend that could easily have brought much less.
© WRC
Sweden was more straightforward, and probably more important. On snow and ice around Umeå, Fontana and co-driver Alessandro Arnaboldi controlled WRC3 to claim their first victory of the season, finishing almost three minutes clear of Tymek Abramowski. Hernández completed the podium, while Membrado took fourth.
But WRC3 has not allowed anyone to settle for long.
Safari Rally Kenya produced a very different kind of winner. With several regular title contenders absent, Georgios Vasilakis and Allan Harryman drove a measured rally to claim a maiden WRC3 victory on one of the calendar’s toughest events. It also put Vasilakis into the WRC Masters Cup lead, while local driver Nikhil Sachania and Naveen Puligilla completed a very different podium to the ones seen in Europe.
Kenya was not central to Fontana’s own title defence, but it mattered to the shape of the championship. Three rounds had produced three different winners, and WRC3’s event-by-event character was already clear.
Croatia then added the Junior WRC factor.
© WRC
Ali Türkkan and Oytun Albayrak won WRC3 on the new Rijeka-based asphalt route, while also taking victory in Junior WRC. Membrado finished second in WRC3, Kerem Kazaz was third and Hernández fourth, making it a strong weekend for drivers also fighting across the Junior field.
For Fontana, Croatia was one of the strangest rallies of his season. He won more WRC3 stages than anyone else, including the opening three tests, but the final classification told a different story. Türkkan won by 4min 47.9sec from Membrado, while Fontana finished sixth, more than 41 minutes behind after a troublesome opening day.
Rally Islas Canarias changed the championship lead altogether.
Membrado arrived on home soil already building momentum after points in Sweden and second place in Croatia. On Gran Canaria’s high-grip asphalt, the teenager converted that progress into a maiden WRC3 victory, beating Abramowski by 13.7sec.
Rossi completed the podium, while Hernández and Nicolas Otto also kept themselves visible in the points fight. Fontana did not compete, and Membrado left the Canary Islands four points clear at the top of the WRC3 standings.
Membrado began Vodafone Rally de Portugal as championship leader and remained in position for a strong result until Sunday morning, when he dropped more than 17 minutes after going off the road and fell out of the lead fight. He eventually finished fourth in WRC3, limiting the damage but losing the advantage he had built in Canarias.
© WRC
Fontana made the most of it. He took WRC3 victory and moved back into the championship lead, while Türkkan finished second to continue his strong run across the gravel event. André Martínez completed the podium, with Hernández fifth and Royère sixth.
Then came Japan, and with it Rossi’s chance to repair his own season.
The Frenchman’s year had already included two major “what if” moments. He had led WRC3 at Monte-Carlo before retiring on Saturday and restarting to finish third. Croatia then brought another retirement, this time with a mechanical issue on SS17. Those results left him with speed, but not the points his pace deserved.
FORUM8 Rally Japan helped correct that. With Fontana and Membrado absent and only three WRC3 crews entered, Rossi needed to take the opportunity. Nicolas Otto started strongly by winning the opening test, but Rossi moved ahead on SS2 and built a commanding advantage over the rest of the weekend.
His victory moved him up to third in the standings and brought him properly back into the title picture. It also gave WRC3 its sixth different winner from seven rounds.
