TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team will take on the Rally de Portugal (May 9-12) with a strong line-up of four drivers ready to continue the team’s run of success on the popular gravel event.
For the first time in the 2024 season, the team will be able to count on both of its world champion drivers, Kalle Rovanperä and Sébastien Ogier: winners of the last two rounds in Kenya and Croatia respectively. Rovanperä is aiming to win in Portugal for the third year in succession, while Ogier is a five-time winner of the event – sharing the record for the most victories with Markku Alén.
Elfyn Evans is also a previous winner in Portugal: his victory in 2021 is one of four consecutive wins by TGR-WRT there since 2019. Evans is currently just six points from the lead of the drivers’ championship after a consistent start to his campaign, with three podium finishes from four events. While the team has nominated the three previous Portugal winners to contribute towards the manufacturers’ championship, which it currently leads by seven points, Takamoto Katsuta will also be aiming high on an event he has performed strongly on in the past.
Portugal will be the first of seven consecutive rallies on gravel. The event is based in the north of the country around the second-largest city of Porto, with the service park located in nearby Matosinhos. The stages are fast but technical in nature, with a surface that is usually soft and sandy at first but often becomes rocky and rutted for the second pass.
The route is similar to previous years, with the rally beginning to the south around the historic city of Coimbra. This year, the competitive action begins on Thursday night with the Figueira da Foz super special that was run on Friday last year. Friday still features added stage kilometres with the Mortágua test to now be run at both the start and end of the day. It’s one of four stages to be driven twice around Arganil, which hosts a mid-day tyre fitting zone.
Saturday is the longest day of the rally, featuring 145.02 competitive kilometres. A repeated loop of four stages in the Cabreira mountains to the north-east of Porto includes the retuning Montim as well as Amarante, the longest stage of the season so far at 37.24 km. Another super special stage at the Lousada rallycross circuit runs in the evening. Sunday features two passes of Cabeceiras de Basto and the famous Fafe, which serves as the rally-ending Power Stage.
The GR Yaris Rally2 will also be well-represented in WRC2 with eight examples entered – the largest amount on any rally so far in its debut season. Sami Pajari (Printsport), Georg Linnamäe (RedGrey), Roope Korhonen (Rautio Motorsport) and Jan Solans (Teo Martín Motorsport) are joined on the entry list by the TGR WRC Challenge Program duo of Yuki Yamamoto and Hikaru Kogure plus two drivers making their debuts in the car: Australia’s Lewis Bates (Neal Bates Motorsport) and Frenchman Jean-Michel Raoux (ERACE WRT).
