At Rally Japan last year, Evans secure runners-up spot for the third time in four seasons with Toyota. Whilst it was an up and down season for the Welshman, he still managed to pick up three wins and secured the team another manufactures championship in the process.
Whilst I’m sure it had been another success for him last year, there was no doubt this year would make or break his WRC career.
After securing a career-high three wins in a World Rally Championship season, and almost doubling his points tally from last year over the same number of rounds, it’s fair to say Elfyn Evans’ 2023 was a huge step forward from his 2022.
But make no mistake, he would have challengers to compete in the 2024 season and so far it has been a struggle for him.
With four rounds remaining in this seasons championship, Evans lies in 4th, 36 points behind championship leader Neuville and whats more worrying his team mate Seb Ogier who is currently in a part time basis this year is Neuville’s nearest rival in the standings as he’s placed second 27 points behind him.
Evans best finish so far has been three second places in Sweden, Croatia & Poland respectively. By no means not bad finishes, it just begs the question has he been comfortable with the car or has it been bad luck?
Finland has proved to be the turning point after he crashed out of Sunday’s session. He admitted afterwards that it is “looking difficult” to claim a maiden World Rally Championship title without scoring any points.
He was firmly in the victory hunt after trailing then leader and team-mate Kalle Rovanpera by eight seconds at the end of Friday.
However, the Welshman’s rally began to unravel when his GR Yaris suffered a driveshaft failure on Saturday morning. Evans incurred a 2m40s penalty for being 16 minutes late out of the midday service following a lengthy repair that put him outside of the points-paying positions at the end of Saturday.
Evans attempted to salvage his weekend by challenging for Super Sunday points before being caught out by the first corner on stage 19 that resulted in a rally-ending accident.
Make no mistake about it. Elfyn is defiantly still in this title fight however he needs to pull in big results now until the end of the season otherwise questions will be asked about whatever or not he can still be the leading figure within the Toyota team.
