The first day of Rally Sweden 2025 has come to an end. Elfyn Evans narrowly leads after the day’s lone stage.
Day One
The first day of Rally Sweden 2025 only featured a short 5.16km stage. Elfyn Evans took the stage win for an early event lead. Kalle Rovanperä and Ott Tänak tied for second on the stage with both drivers finishing 00.5 seconds slower than Evans.
Quotes
Toyota
Jari-Matti Latvala (Team Principal)
“It’s always great for us to be here in Sweden starting this rally and especially with the nice conditions for rallying that we have this week. When you have minus temperatures, big snowbanks, the sun is shining and you’re pushing to the limits, it’s a great feeling as a driver. We had a good start tonight but it’s going to be interesting to see tomorrow how the roads are evolving, and how the pace is evolving with the new Hankook tyres when the road is cleaning up. With Elfyn opening the road, hopefully we have a cold night and the conditions stay consistent for everyone, but the good thing is that our drivers are spread nicely through the order and we hope to make a good start whatever the situation is.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“The conditions look brilliant out on the stages, with a good ice base and big snowbanks – you couldn’t really hope for much better. This first stage was a pretty solid start: the braking points can be difficult to find in the dark and the grip was difficult to judge, but it was all OK. It might be that some stages work in our favour opening the road tomorrow, and others like the first stage where there’s a bit more loose snow on the ground could cost us a bit more, but let’s see how it goes.”
Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“We’re expecting to have a nice winter rally this weekend and I’m really excited for that. The conditions looked really nice on the stages during the recce, better than usual with a good layer of ice. If it’s like it was in this first stage tonight, it could be good to be near the front of the road order. Again we have a new tyre for this surface so there will be many things to learn. It’s a rally where you need to push a lot, so hopefully we have a good feeling and can have a great event.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“It’s nice to be back on snow and the conditions are looking very good, with thick ice and not too much gravel coming through. Still, we know that the second pass of stages could be tricky, especially as we are learning about the new tyres. I was surprised how low the grip was on this first stage, but tomorrow’s stages might be quite different. The car is good and my feeling is good so I’m quite confident.”
Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“Normally I like winter rallies with proper winter conditions like we have here this week: it seems to be nice and icy. We need to see how it develops but I’m really looking forward to the weekend. For me the grip was changing quite a lot in the first stage so it wasn’t easy to find the flow, but it was good to get through it cleanly before the rally starts properly tomorrow. In general I’m quite happy and confident with the car and just aiming to have a good time.”