Sami Pajari and Mãrtiņš Sesks both led, but Adrien Fourmaux rose to the front on Thursday
Photography by Hyundai, DirtFish & Toyota
Words by Luke Barry
Adrien Fourmaux leads Rally Saudi Arabia as his rivals Sami Pajari and Mãrtiņš Sesks both ran into tire trouble.
Sesks took the lead of the event on Thursday’s opening stage and began to pull away by 3.9s after five tests.
But a rear-right puncture on SS6 cost him over 15s and the lead as he plummeted to third place.
That allowed Pajari to assume the lead, but he then lost it on the next stage as his front-right tire delaminated.
Fourmaux, who went with a soft-biased tire package, declared himself happy with his day before learning that he had taken the lead by exactly six seconds. Sesks is just a further 0.9s behind.
Pajari meanwhile wasn’t sure what had caused his problem: “I don’t know what happened, something clearly happened, so I need to check,” he said. “It has been good, but we see how challenging it really is. Still two long days to go.”
Sesks lost the lead when he got this puncture
Ott Tänak and Thierry Neuville are split by just 1.12 in fourth and fifth, but are 15s off the lead. Neuville was poised to pounce on his team-mate until his rear-right tire delaminated on SS7.
“Four kilometers towards the end we had a massive noise, but we didn’t have any alarm so I was already thinking it was delaminated,” Neuville said. “It’s hard to tell in the ruts sometimes, but we are here. Not the perfect day but enjoyed it in the car, discovering a new rally.”
Tänak won the stage, but suspected he had damaged suspension as “I lost it through the stage”.
While three drivers can claim the WRC title in Saudi Arabia, none of them are inside the top six – largely because of road cleaning.
As it stands, Sébastien Ogier has the points to usurp Elfyn Evans and become world champion for a ninth time on Sunday; he’s seventh, 41.1s ahead of Evans.
But crucially, Evans is two positions behind Ogier as Kalle Rovanperä muscled his Toyota in between them – overhauling Evans on the final gravel stage of the day despite a loss of tire pressure towards the end.
“That was the plan,” Rovanperä, who punctured on SS4 earlier, said. “Obviously we have nothing to lose anymore, so even though it was rough we tried to push. Good that we can start behind Elfyn tomorrow, that’s important.”
Ogier is in position to be world champion as it stands
Evans added: “It’s pretty tough in there. The cleaning on the second pass has been even worse than the first and this stage with all these hairpins is a bit of a nightmare, but we did what we could.”
Takamoto Katsuta is ahead of his title-chasing team-mates, 21.3s clear of Ogier in sixth overall.
Nasser Al-Attiyah suffered a difficult afternoon to fall outside the top-10; losing the trunk of his Puma Rally1 after a heavy landing over a jump which allowed dust to infiltrate the cockpit, and then spending minutes changing a puncture with a faulty jack.
Al-Attiyah smiled: “It’s an extreme day, we have everything. But it’s OK we are here. We know Saudi Arabia Rally is very tough and we are so happy to be here. I’ll have a good shower now.”
M-Sport team-mates Grégoire Munster and Josh McErlean are 10th and 12th respectively, split by Oliver Solberg’s leading Rally2 Toyota. McErlean lost three minutes in the morning with a tire change.
Ogier and Sesks were joint-quickest on the Jameel Motorsport Super Special which concluded Thursday’s leg.
Words:Luke Barry
Tags: Rally Saudi Arabia, Rally Saudi Arabia 2025, WRC, WRC 2025
Publish Date November 27, 2025 DirtFish
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