WRC
Preview: Croatia Rally 2026
Croatia Rally returns to the WRC calendar this week for round four of the 2026 season, marking the first pure asphalt event of the year and the beginning of a crucial new phase in the title race.
The event is back after a one-year absence and does so with a major overhaul, shifting its base from Zagreb to Rijeka and the Grobnik Circuit, a venue best known for hosting the Yugoslavian Grand Prix from 1978 to 1990, while introducing a route that is more than 75 per cent new compared to the last WRC edition in 2024.
Elfyn Evans arrives in Croatia at the top of the drivers’ championship on 66 points, eight clear of Toyota Gazoo Racing team-mate Oliver Solberg, with Safari Rally Kenya winner Takamoto Katsuta a further three points behind. Toyota also leads the manufacturers’ standings on 157 points, ahead of Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT on 114.
Evans has strong pedigree in Croatia, having won the event in 2023 and finished runner-up by just 0.6sec on its inaugural WRC running in 2021. Despite suffering his first retirement in 19 starts last time out in Kenya, the Welshman still salvaged six points on Super Sunday and retained his championship lead heading into the asphalt switch.
“Croatia has been a good rally for us in the past so it’s nice to be going back there,” said Evans. “It’s always been a rally with a lot of surface changes and with that a lot of grip changes, but there are more unknowns this year with the event moving towards the coast. We will have to see what the new stages are like when we get there, and write plenty of new pacenotes during the recce.”
Evans also hinted at the wider challenge facing teams as Croatia opens a run of back-to-back asphalt rallies, with preparations already needing to take Rally Islas Canarias into account.
“In our test we had quite wet and muddy conditions, which could be representative of what we’ll face in the rally, but we were also having to think ahead towards the Canaries with some parts linked between the two rallies,” he explained. “Like always, we aim to fight for the best result possible.”
Solberg remains firmly in contention after showing strong pace in Kenya before alternator failure halted his rally, while Katsuta heads to Croatia full of confidence following his breakthrough maiden WRC victory. The Japanese driver has finished inside the top six on every edition of Croatia Rally in the WRC and has four stage wins at the event to his name.
Hyundai’s challenge is led by Adrien Fourmaux, who scored both his and the team’s first podium of the season in Kenya, while Thierry Neuville returns to an event that has repeatedly slipped from his grasp despite several strong performances. Hayden Paddon joins Hyundai for his second start of the season and will make his Croatia Rally debut.
Toyota’s line-up is further strengthened by Sami Pajari, who arrives on the back of consecutive podium finishes, while M-Sport Ford fields Jon Armstrong and Josh McErlean. Armstrong returns to the country where he won last year’s FIA European Rally Championship (ERC) finale, although none of the stages used in 2025 feature on this year’s route, while McErlean faces Croatia for the first time.
The rally begins on Friday, with crews set to tackle 20 stages covering 300km against the clock across the Istria, Karlovac and Primorje-Gorski Kotar regions, with a mix of narrow, technical roads, surface changes and potentially unpredictable conditions expected to provide a stern challenge.
That challenge is only heightened by the character of the new-look route, which climbs from the Adriatic coast to more than 1200 metres above sea level on stages such as Platak, where rapidly changing weather could again become a factor.
Friday’s action is centred entirely on Istria, Saturday includes a remote service in Karlovac, while Sunday heads towards the Adriatic coast on a final leg that features the brand-new Alan - Senj Wolf Power Stage.
