Canary Islands Rally 2026, SS8: Ogier dominates ahead of Solberg

An entire Day 2 under the banner of Toyota in the Canary Islands, as had already been seen between yesterday’s first stage and this morning. Closing at the top of the provisional general classification was once again Sébastien Ogier, who during the stages increased the gap over the Swede Oliver Solberg, with the two drivers classifying in the first two positions of all scheduled stages with the exception of the last round, where Katsuta returned as the protagonist in the show held at the Gran Canarias stadium.

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SS5-SS8: Toyota still unbeatable

This afternoon, the Rally Islas Canarias resumed with SS5, at the end of which the top-5 Toyota drivers reappeared once again, this time led by Solberg. From the Swede (who, with his performance, also moved up to second overall ahead of Pajari and Evans) to Katsuta, the gap was only 9 nine seconds, with the Hyundais, on the other hand, clearly struggling to keep pace with the Japanese cars. By a whisker, Solberg then failed to collect a double in SS6, recording a time just two tenths ‘slower’ than that set by Ogier. Also in this stage, Pajari reached third position ahead of Evans and Katsuta, only to lose ground in SS7; the Finn was unable to defend third place from the return of Evans, who climbed to the lowest step of the virtual podium in a stage still won by Ogier, two seconds ahead of Solberg. However, in the last stage of Day 2, which took place in the evening at the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria stadium (the same one where the competition opened last night), the show featured not only Pajari, who with the second fastest time immediately returned to the top-3 just ahead of Evans, but also and above all Katsuta. In the same stadium where the world leader had opened the rally with a victory, the Japanese driver repeated his performance after a day that saw him in fifth place multiple times in the stages. Ogier, on the other hand, finished in fourth position ‘sandwiched’ between the Hyundais of Fourmaux and Neuville, 3rd and 5th respectively, but despite this, the reigning champion firmly maintained the leadership of the Spanish rally, with the Frenchman from Toyota who will start tomorrow morning’s first stage with a 9-second advantage over Solberg.

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Rally Islas Canarias 2026, standings after SS8 (Top-10)