The third day of Rally Sweden 2025 has come to an end. Elfyn Evans retains the event lead after the days seven stages.
Morning Loop (Stages 9-11)
Elfyn Evans expanded his lead by 2.2 seconds on the morning loop. With the Welshman now having a 2.8-second lead over Takamoto Katsuta. Thierry Neuville jumped up to third overall after Ott Tänak suffered an issue on SS11 that caused oil to go on his windscreen. Adrien Fourmaux also had an issue on SS11. However, it wasn’t to do with the car. As it seemed like Fourmaux forgot to fasten his helmet correctly and forgot to put a glove on. Therefore he has to stop to fix these issues. Kalle Rovanperä, Elfyn Evans and Thierry Neuville each took a stage win during the loop.
Afternoon Loop (Stages 12-15)
Elfyn Evans held onto the event lead after the final stages of the Rally Sweden 2025 day three. Evans heads into the final day with a three-second advantage over Takamoto Katsuta. Thierry Neuville took two stage wins during the loop. While Adrien Fourmaux and Elfyn Evans each took one. Fourmaux got stuck in a snowbank on SS13, which forced the Frenchman to retire for the day. Evans stalled temporarily on SS15 which cost him a handful of seconds.
Quotes
Toyota Gazoo Racing
Jari-Matti Latvala (Team Principal)
“It has been another very close and exciting day. It was not so easy to watch this last stage of the day with a very icy road and worn tyres, because it’s easy for the drivers to make a mistake there, and unfortunately Elfyn lost some valuable seconds. Still, both Elfyn and Taka have been driving well overall and remain one-two tonight, which is great. But the gaps are very small, also to Neuville behind, so I think the final day is going to be really exciting for everybody to watch. It will be important to push hard but also to manage the level of risk carefully, because the points are valuable for the championship.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“Overall today has been pretty good. It’s a close fight and I think there have been ups and downs for almost everybody at some point. There were just a couple of small mistakes in the last two stages which were quite costly: when the times are so tight there’s not much margin for error. On the penultimate stage I just lost the line ever so slightly, and in the last one the rear stepped out under braking, I locked the wheels and stalled. We need to try and avoid such mistakes tomorrow. Everything is to play for and it should be an exciting day.”
Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“Today was definitely much better than yesterday. We did a lot of work with the setup last night, and it felt pretty good on the first stage this morning which was narrow and technical. There we could feel comfortable and have some pace. When the stages are wider with long and fast corners, I’m still looking for some more precision. For tomorrow we’ll try to put everything we have learned this weekend together and aim to score some good points.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“It has been a challenging day but quite a strong day I think. This morning I was not completely happy with the feeling in the car and this afternoon I was struggling a bit with the conditions. I had an overshoot and had to reverse, but I think we managed to gain some time back afterwards. The gap is not big in front or behind but it feels good for me to be in this position. Tomorrow will be interesting but I will just try to continue what I’ve been doing the whole weekend and see what happens.”
Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“It has been quite a solid day today. The morning especially was really nice and enjoyable for us. There were some stages where I felt I left some margin and some room to improve but still the times were OK. This afternoon there were some trickier conditions on the second pass and I felt I was struggling a bit more there. But overall it has been a good clean day full of learning in different conditions, so there are a lot of good things to take into tomorrow.”
Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT
Thierry Neuville
“The target of the day was to get closer to the lead and finally we achieved that. I’ve been satisfied with our performance; step by step we’ve been able to increase the speed. We’re still fighting a bit with mid-stage sections, but overall I think we went in the right direction and we know now what to do. There are extra points to take tomorrow, so in such a close battle everyone will be flat out. Let’s cross our fingers that everything will go our way tomorrow, and we will see. ”
Ott Tänak
“This morning I had a better feeling chassis-wise, and it only improved from there. The first stage was positive, but then after this we lost some speed. The rest of the day we had to maximise everything we could. Some stages were bad, some were good, but that’s just the way it’s been. I think with the pace we’ve had this afternoon, a fight for the win tomorrow doesn’t look too promising. When it’s icy, the new tyres are consistent and tyre wear is not too bad, but we will see what the conditions are like tomorrow. ”
Adrien Fourmaux
“Today was not my day definitely, on SS11 I had to stop to tighten my helmet and lost more than 20 seconds, and then this afternoon I get trapped in a really soft snowbank. The car was in the snowbank on the outside and it pushed the front into it after that, so for 60 metres we were forced along it. At some point it caught the front and then we got stuck in the really fresh snow; it was really deep and there were no spectators. A difficult day, but I just want to refocus on tomorrow and try to get some points for the championship where we can. ”
Hyundai Motorsport WRC Chief Engineer Gerard-Jan de Jongh
“Today was challenging but we are still in a close battle for a strong result going into the final day of Rally Sweden. Thierry’s performance was encouraging, and paired with the performance of the car on the second pass we have a lot of confidence for tomorrow. We obviously had some worries with Ott’s coolant reservoir issue which was influencing his performance, which was a shame as he lost touch with the lead of the rally, but he still remains in contention for the podium positions. With Adrien’s helmet mistake and his frustrations around that, he was probably trying too hard to compensate for the mistake and unfortunately lost a bit of his control and vision of the rally. Our main target is making the most of the Super Sunday points, and with Thierry’s pace we can do incredibly well with both him and Ott. ”