Sébastien Ogier leads Rally Chile by 6.3 seconds over Elfyn Evans after Saturday's leg
Photography by Toyota & M-Sport
Words by Luke Barry
Sébastien Ogier leads Rally Chile into Sunday, but has Toyota team-mate and World Rally Championship title rival Elfyn Evans just 6.3 seconds behind him.
It was Adrien Fourmaux who led a Hyundai 1-2 overnight ahead of team-mate Thierry Neuville, but Saturday’s stages favored the Toyotas and Evans and Ogier made their moves.
Evans began the day fifth but stormed into the lead by lunchtime service – making hay while the sun didn’t shine; thriving in the wet conditions.
The afternoon loop was drier and was the first time any of the drivers used Hankook’s hard tires this weekend, and it was Ogier who was king.
Halving Evans’ advantage on SS10, the eight-time champion overhauled the Welshman on SS11 to carry a one-second lead into the day’s final test. Duly setting the fastest time to complete a clean sweep of the loop, Ogier was an impressive 5.3s quicker than Evans.
“Sounds good, but it’s going to be intense up ’til the end,” Ogier said. “Tomorrow morning I need to be awake, not like the first stage the last two days.”
Fourmaux is clinging onto a podium position but any dreams of a maiden WRC win appeared to evaporate over the afternoon, as he felt he was at his maximum but couldn’t match Ogier nor Evans.
The Frenchman ended Saturday 26.8s off the lead, but at least kept his world champion team-mate Neuville 14.9s behind him.
“It’s difficult because the opponents are quite strong to be fair today, I really tried,” Fourmaux – who elected not to speak to stage-end reports after SS11 – said after SS12.
“I really tried as hard as I can and yeah… for sure there are places we lose a bit, but globally we are lacking something today. It’s quite a shame but we don’t give up the fight. We continue, we learn and we try to prepare. For sure the positive is we are on the podium tonight, but we want more.”
Neuville added: “I had to try something with the tiers if I wanted to get close4 to the podium again. So I was on three softs and hards but I couldn’t make the best of it. However I tried.”
Sami Pajari had looked under threat from Kalle Rovanperä in the all-Finnish fight for fifth, but running as the first car onto the stages hurt Rovanperä and he eventually ended the leg 32.8s behind his less-experienced team-mate.
Munster joked that his Puma felt more like an Escort with its soft-shod rear-end
Grégoire Munster “gave it my all” but lost seventh place to Takamoto Katsuta on the final stage of the day – a puncture he noticed after the previous stage forcing him to run two soft compounds on the rear.
“It was a Ford but not a Puma, it was an Escort!” Munster said.
Katsuta ended the leg 6.1s ahead of Munster – threatening to overhaul the M-Sport man on SS11 but spinning his Toyota.
“It’s been quite a disaster this weekend,” Katsuta sighed, “so let’s try to have a good day tomorrow.”
Oliver Solberg continues to lead WRC2 in his Toyota, meaning he is in position to clinch the championship title tomorrow.
Words:Luke Barry
Tags: Rally Chile, Rally Chile 2025, WRC, WRC 2025
Publish Date September 13, 2025 DirtFish 
https://dirtfish-editorial.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/2025/09/rZBQAnh4-OGIER11CHL25tb347-780x520.jpg September 13, 2025
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