The island of Gran Canaria, located in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of northwest Africa, provides the venue for round four of the 2025 season and what can be considered the first pure asphalt event of the year. It will also be the first Spanish round of the WRC held since 2022.

TGR-WRT makes the trip leading the manufacturers’ championship by 26 points following victories in each of the opening three rounds, and with Elfyn Evans atop the drivers’ standings by 36 points following his back-to-back wins in Sweden and Kenya.

Sébastien Ogier returns to action for the first time since his Rallye Monte-Carlo victory in January to form a full line-up of five GR YARIS Rally1 cars, with the trio of Ogier, Evans and Kalle Rovanperä nominated to compete for manufacturers’ points. 

Also in action will be Takamoto Katsuta and Sami Pajari, the latter driving under the TGR-WRT2 banner and the only one among the quintet of drivers to have competed previously in Rally Islas Canarias, which steps up to the WRC after many years as a round of the FIA European Rally Championship

The event is known for twisting roads that are constantly climbing or descending the mountainous terrain, and often lined by barriers on one side and rock on the other. An abrasive surface, constructed partly from volcanic lava, should provide high and consistent grip levels but can also make tyre wear a consideration, while the island location has the potential to bring changeable weather conditions.

The rally is based in the island’s capital city Las Palmas in the north-east, with the service park located adjacent to the Gran Canaria Stadium, while the stages are held all around the island. After shakedown and a ceremonial start on Thursday, the rally begins for real on Friday when a trio of stages across the centre of the island are run twice either side of mid-day service. A similar format is followed for most of Saturday, when the action is centred in the north and concludes with a super special that runs partly inside a basketball arena. The rally concludes on Sunday with five stages to the south near Maspalomas, which hosts the podium ceremony.

A total of nine GR Yaris Rally2 cars are entered for drivers including Spanish champion Alejandro Cachón, who makes the step up to WRC2 entered by Toyota Spain and run by Teo Martín Motorsport. Also embarking on WRC2 campaigns are last year’s ERC runner-up Mathieu Franceschi with AMD Motorsport, as well as Fabio Schwarz, son of former Toyota WRC driver Armin Schwarz.

Others competing in WRC2 are the TGR WRC Challenge Program duo of Yuki Yamamoto and Hikaru Kogure plus Diego Domínguez (Teo Martín Motorsport) and Spanish driver Carlos Moreno (Raceseven). Series leader Oliver Solberg (Printsport) and Georg Linnamäe (RedGrey) are also entered but not registered to score points on this event.

Quotes:

Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)

“The whole team is looking forward to a new challenge at Rally Islas Canarias. Even though it hasn’t been in the WRC before, it’s actually a rally that I was able to drive six times myself in the past – the last time was 10 years ago – and it will be nice to go back there. The roads are very good to drive and I’m sure that the drivers will enjoy it. Most of our drivers don’t have any experience there, but in general we have a very strong line-up with Sébastien also there this time, and the team has been preparing well. It has been a good start to the season so far and of course we hope to carry that on.”

Elfyn Evans / Scott Martin

Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)

“We’ve had a good run of rallies to start the season but it changes nothing really for me in terms of approach: we just want to go and have a good rally and achieve the best result possible. In terms of character, we can expect the stages to be generally very clean and quite twisty. The majority of asphalt rallies we’ve had in the championship over recent years have been more on the dirtier side and we’ve missed the variety of a proper racing-style rally like this. With very little cutting, road position shouldn’t have a huge bearing, so I don’t think it will be much of an advantage to be running first if at all; I suspect it should be similar conditions for everybody and a fair fight.”

Kalle Rovanperä / Jonne Halttunen

Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)

“It’s exciting to be going to a new asphalt rally which looks to be quite different to the others we usually do. From what I’ve seen of the ERC event, it seems to be a really nice rally with good, stable conditions, which should be really enjoyable. It’s also going to be quite a challenge going there for the first time and making new pacenotes for roads like those, where I think you will really need to be on-point everywhere to be fast. We made some good progress in our test in Spain last week and have a better feeling on asphalt. We’ve had a few tricky rallies lately so we’re definitely looking to turn things around and have a good finish hopefully.”

Sébastien Ogier / Vincent Landais

Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)

“It’s always an exciting feeling to go to a new rally. It’s almost like the essence of rallying, where nobody knows the roads and you need to start from scratch. We will have a very demanding recce discovering all the stages, and making good pacenotes will be crucial to be quick on this rally. It’s a situation that has suited me well in the past and I hope I can still do it well and fight for the top positions. From what I’ve seen, the roads look very beautiful, but I also know that on an island in the Atlantic, the weather can change very quickly. It’s going to be nice to be back on these kind of high-grip, circuit-style stages, and I hope we can be in the mix and fighting for the win.”

Takamoto Katsuta / Aaron Johnston

Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)

“From what I’ve heard from other drivers, Rally Islas Canarias is one of the nicest asphalt rallies so I’m really looking forward to it. It’s very much a pure asphalt rally with not much cutting or dirt on the road, and in these conditions we can really enjoy the maximum performance of the car and the aerodynamics. It kind of reminds me of my previous experience in circuit racing, and hopefully this can help me to perform well. At the same time, we will again have some new tyres for this rally and we will need to see how they are performing on those stages and try to adapt as best as we can.”

Sami Pajari / Marko Salminen

Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)

“To go from Kenya to the Canaries is maybe the biggest contrast we can have between two rallies in the championship. I did the rally four years ago with a Rally4 car and I really liked it; it’s one of the rallies which is closest to circuit racing. Some of the stages especially are nice and wide with a good clean surface and not much cutting. I had a nice test last week with both dry and wet conditions, and felt really good behind the wheel. In Kenya the idea was to avoid issues which was key to our result; here there should be less that can go wrong and I hope it can be an enjoyable rally for us.”