TOKYO, Oct 8, 2021 – (JCN Newswire) – The TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team takes on the penultimate round of the 2021 FIA World Rally Championship – the Rally de Espana on October 15-17 – with the opportunity for both the manufacturers’ and drivers’ titles to be clinched on fast and flowing asphalt roads.
The team leads the manufacturers’ championship by 61 points, with a maximum of 52 points available after the Spanish event. For the third season in a row, a Toyota driver is guaranteed to win the drivers’ title, with 24 points separating team-mates Sebastien Ogier and Elfyn Evans after the latter’s victory on the previous round in Finland.
For Ogier, a six-point swing in his favour on a rally he has won three times would secure him his eighth world title, while Evans is looking to maintain his chances of a maiden crown. Kalle Rovanpera is currently fourth in the standings and only one point away from a place in the top three, while TGR WRC Challenge Program driver Takamoto Katsuta will once more be in action in a fourth Yaris WRC.
Based in Salou on the Costa Daurada to the south of Barcelona, the rally returns to the calendar after one year away and moves back to being an exclusively asphalt event for the first time since 2009, having been run as a mixed-surface challenge for the previous 10 editions.
Friday has a loop of three stages repeated either side of mid-day service. It features a new stage, La Granadella, as well as Vilaplana (a reversal of 2019’s La Mussara Power Stage) and Riba-roja, last seen in this configuration in 2012. Saturday follows an identical route to before, with a trio of repeated stages followed by a street stage in Salou. Sunday’s finale consists of the returning Santa Marina stage and the well-known Riudecanyes test, both to be run twice.
For more information, visit https://toyotagazooracing.com/wrc/release/2021/rd11-preview/.
