Rally Italia Sardegna is set to bring the 2026 FIA World Rally Championship to a dramatic conclusion next week. Only three drivers remain capable of taking the crown, and all three are Toyota team-mates: Elfyn Evans, Sami Pajari and Oliver Solberg.
The landscape shifted dramatically when Rally Saudi Arabia was dropped from the 2026 calendar, bumping Sardinia up to the role of season finale. Evans heads to Alghero holding the advantage with 230 points. Pajari sits second, 17 points back, while Solberg trails the Welshman by 21 points in third. None of them have won a WRC drivers' title yet.
The points system keeps the door wide open. A standard victory pays 25 points, scaling down to 10 points for fifth place. On top of that, Super Sunday and the Wolf Power Stage hand out another five points each, pushing the maximum haul for a single weekend to 35 points.
Here is how the math breaks down for each contender. Evans arrives with the clearest path: he will be world champion if he scores 19 points or more, no matter what his rivals do. A rally victory guarantees the title instantly, even without bonus points. He can also reach that magic 19-point mark by finishing second overall plus at least two Sunday bonus points, third overall plus at least four bonus points, fourth overall plus at least seven bonus points, or fifth overall plus at least nine bonus points. Sixth place awards eight points, meaning even a clean sweep of the 10 Sunday points leaves him at 18, forcing him to watch the results of his team-mates.
Pajari arrives with 213 points after a stunning run of three victories in Estonia, Finland and Paraguay. To leapfrog Evans outright, the Finn needs to outscore the championship leader by at least 18 points. He also starts just four points ahead of Solberg, meaning he has to defend his rear flank as well. If Solberg scores five points more than Pajari, the Swede moves ahead. A maximum 35-point weekend pushes Pajari to 248 points, where Evans could score no more than 18. If Evans managed exactly 18, they would tie on 248, but Pajari would take the title on countback thanks to having four rally wins to Evans' two.
Solberg faces the biggest deficit with 209 points, but his commanding victory in Chile keeps him very much alive. To finish ahead on points alone, the Swede must outscore Evans by at least 22 points and Pajari by five. A perfect 35-point weekend lifts him to 244 points. In that scenario, Evans could score no more than 15 points and still leave the title within Solberg's reach. Fifteen points would level them at 244, but a Sardinia win would secure a third victory of the season for Solberg against Evans' two, handing him the crown on countback. If Solberg takes maximum points, Pajari cannot match 244.
Any championship ties are decided first by rally victories, then by second places, third places and so on. Pajari currently holds three wins while Evans and Solberg have two, making the final finishing order in Italy massively significant for the countback picture. It is a razor-thin margin across machines, points, and pressure.
