You won’t often hear a World Rally Championship driver refer to luck, but the series leader knew the rallying gods were smiling on him in Finland.
First there was the heavy rainfall on Friday afternoon, which was more favorable to Evans than others as he climbed from fifth to second.
Then, crucially, there was the rollover.
Two corners from the end of Saturday morning’s final stage, Elfyn Evans ran ever so slightly wide, hooked a ditch on the outside and his Toyota rolled. Ironically, the main time loss occurred when he got stuck in the ditch after restarting the car and needed spectator help to get going again.
The 1m50s time loss dropped the Welshman from second to fifth, but team-mate Sébastien Ogier’s crash from the lead – and then Evans overhauling Adrien Fourmaux – allowed him to climb back onto the podium and actually extend his championship lead to 30 points, despite Saturday’s drama.
“I have to consider myself a very lucky boy, I think,” Evans told DirtFish. “You know, that’s the reality. You don’t get away with going over three times like that and still have four wheels on and no cage damage very often.
“It was a place where there was zero margin for error. I knew that and I still made the mistake there. So of course I’m kicking myself for that because it pulled me out of contention for the win.
Evans perhaps could've won Finland had he not rolled on Saturday, but he also could've retired from a crash
“But hey, I think driving wise, it was a good weekend. We really enjoyed having these [Rally1] cars for the last time here. I feel like I kind of made the most of that in a way. So, no, it was a nice weekend, but of course [I’m] lucky to score those points at the end.”
While Evans feels luck factored into his Rally Finland outcome, one element that certainly wasn’t fortunate was the job his mechanics did in service.
“When you crash like that, you think that it’s over to begin with,” Evans said. “I thought the rolling had stopped and then there was a couple of big bangs that I thought was definitely breaking something, and then I made the mistake of trying to move the car with first and not reverse, you know, and that’s where we got stuck.
“Of course it feels like a bit of a miracle when the car drives out after that. And of course there was a lot of damage that the boys had to fix, but you know they’re very, very capable and did an amazing job for us.
“I owe huge thanks to the guys who fixed the car on Saturday, without them this rally would have been over.”
In the end, Evans put 24 points on the board in Finland – only three fewer than rally winner (and now closest championship rival) Sami Pajari and two fewer than second-placed Oliver Solberg.
On a weekend that could’ve ended so differently, how decisive could that prove as the race to become 2026 world champion intensifies?
