Sébastien Ogier won the Acropolis Rally Greece on June 28, 2026, driving a Toyota GR Yaris Rally1. His 69th career WRC victory. The Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team now leads the manufacturers' championship by 140 points over Hyundai, up from before the Greek round.

Ogier's Dominant Run

The lead changed hands more than once. Ogier and co-driver Vincent Landais took top spot after Thursday's opening stage in Athens, but Hyundai's Thierry Neuville clawed it back through Friday and Saturday's rocky stages. Heading into the final day, Neuville's margin stood at just 4.1 seconds.

On Sunday, the rally turned. Ogier took a 1.3 second lead through the opening Aghii Theodori stage. It held until the second pass, when Neuville suffered two rear tyre punctures and dropped 53.5 seconds. The rally was effectively over at that point.

From there, Ogier managed the gap. Through the closing Power Stage he nursed the car rather than chasing a stage win he no longer needed — and if you've watched him do this before, you know how clinical that calculation looks in real time. Fastest anyway. His final margin over Neuville was 58.3 seconds.

Ogier has now won the Acropolis twice. His first victory coming 15 years ago. Nine world titles have not dulled his edge on Greece's stones and heat. "It's been a long weekend," he said after the finish. "I couldn't push in that last stage. I just drove as gently as I could and felt for every stone." Winning the Power Stage while nursing the car is the kind of detail that separates nine titles from eight.

Double Podium and Title Lead

Katsuta's weekend told the other half. Starting strong, the Japanese driver slipped to sixth overall after a tough Friday on the loose gravel roads north of the Gulf of Corinth. Saturday brought a recovery; he climbed back to third and held it to the finish, 3 minutes and 4.8 seconds behind Ogier.

Toyota Gazoo Racing now sits on 416 points in the manufacturers' standings, 140 clear of Hyundai after eight of 14 rounds. Third in the drivers' championship is where Ogier lands after his maximum haul from the weekend. Seven points, check that gap against the remaining six rounds and it stays tight. That is all that separates Katsuta from championship leader Elfyn Evans.

Toyota already leads new car sales across the Kingdom. Finishing 1-2-3 on the world's harshest rally stages adds a data point Saudi buyers have long held as fact: these cars survive punishment. The GR Yaris Rally1 made that case in front of the whole motorsport world.

Testing Terrain and Setup

Rocky mountain roads in central Greece give the Acropolis Rally its reputation as a car breaker. Tyres shred. Suspension takes hits that most road cars never face. Temperatures stayed above 30 degrees Celsius through the weekend, piling mechanical stress onto the physical grind for every crew.

Two of the top three finishing positions in those conditions show how thoroughly Toyota prepared the GR Yaris. Saudi drivers already know heat resilience counts on long summer runs between Riyadh and Jeddah; Rally1 conditions push that same demand much further.

Rally Estonia runs July 17 to 19, 2026, bringing the FIA World Rally Championship to the fast gravel roads of Northern Europe. Toyota holds the top five positions in the drivers' standings. The chasing pack has a lot of ground to recover.