Two stages from the finish in Chile, Elfyn Evans was second, heading for a big points lead and an almost guaranteed title. Then a shredded tire dropped him to fifth, hitting his chances with the biggest negative all year.
A week later Rally Saudi Arabia was cancelled, making Sardinia the finale and Evans’ chances were given one of the biggest boosts all season. This is how the title race has flip flopped, written and analyzed by Sports4Cast.
Evans: Second all weekend, until Carampangue
Solberg led from the third stage to the finish and took 34 of the 35 points on offer, his first win since Monte-Carlo. Behind him, Evans drove like a points leader and World champion elect. He was second, 10.1 seconds back after Friday and 19.1 after Saturday, fending off Sébastien Ogier by 1.3s. With two stages to go he was 14.5 seconds off the lead and 6.3s clear of Ogier.
Fig. 1 - The weekend, stage by stage. Cumulative gap to the rally leader after each stage, in seconds. Evans runs second, 7–19s behind, until his SS15 puncture drops him to 142s back and fifth
Then came the second pass of Carampangue, SS15, and 26.8 km on a punctured tire. Evans lost 127 seconds to Solberg on that stage alone and dropped from second to fifth. He kept his head and was second-quickest on the powerstage, but the weekend that should have brought about 26 points brought 14.
What the puncture was worth
We can price that puncture, because the simulation can replay the same 10,000 seasons with one thing changed. We rebuilt Evans’s SS15 with the time from his first pass of the same stage, and shifted it by how much the rest of the clean-running field sped up on the second pass. And with that time he finishes second and wins Super Sunday. Then we replayed the last two races of the season with those points – as you can see below.
Even when we simulated a deliberately pessimistic scenario, using Evans’s slowest Sunday pace of the weekend, he finished third instead and the title chance was 89.4%. Either way, the tyre cost him roughly a fifth of his title chance.
That is the number worth digesting. Paraguay, with Katsuta, Neuville and Ogier all out on Friday, moved Evans’s title chance by around 6%. Chile’s puncture alone was worth about 20%. However, it was a win for the neutrals – it also cut the chance of the title being settled in Sardinia with a round to spare (before Saudi was cancelled), from 23% to 2%.
Good to keep things interesting, at least for a bit.
The nearest man on points was third in line
Here was the counter-intuitive part. Sami Pajari took three points out of Evans’s lead, 20 down to 17, and was the closest driver to him on the table. Yet his title chance fell, from a pre race 21.5% to 10.0% – and Solberg, four points further back, passed him into second at 16.7%. Position on the table says Pajari; the model says Solberg.
Two things pulled it that way. Pajari’s Chile hurt him: he shipped 54 seconds to Solberg over Saturday’s six stages, and the model marked him down for it. Solberg did the opposite – he won, and on the two gravel rounds left he read as the faster car.
The arithmetic followed the pace, not the standings: to overhaul Evans, Pajari needed to out-score him by 17 across Sardinia and Saudi Arabia and he managed it in 13% of our seasons. Solberg needed a bigger points swing of 21, yet got there more often, in 19% of our seasons. He needed more, but also appeared more likely to find it. It is also worth pointing out that although Pajari has won a few he’s never really had to fight for it on a Sunday – his Sunday points haul is less than the others.
Flip, Flop: Deserved good karma for Evans?
For most of 2026 Evans has been opening the road, making the best of it, banking points and growing his lead, slowly cutting his rivals’ paths to victory.
Then drama in the last few weeks with many things beyond his control.
Two stages from the end in Chile Evans was heading for an almost-certain title with a near insurmountable points lead; then a puncture cut that to a one-in-four chance of losing it, the biggest hit to his title chances all season; then Saudi Arabia’s cancellation lifted it back with his biggest boost to his title chances since Finland, and second biggest overall gain, and around where he might have been, pre-puncture.
The finale, and what each needs
Sardinia is now the whole story: one gravel rally, a maximum of 35 points, and a 17-point lead to defend.
Evans opens the road on Friday, Pajari behind him, Solberg third. However, our favourite for Sardinia is none of these. It is Ogier, who wins in 49% of simulated finales, and yet he cannot win the title. He may, however, prove to be the Kingmaker for Evans. Any points he wins is a wall of points an Evans contender can’t get.
For either chaser the shape is the same: they need to win – 25 of the 35 points go to the winner – and they need Evans well down the order. Exactly how far down is the whole question. On the rally result alone, Pajari needs Evans sixth or lower and Solberg needs him eighth or lower; the ten Super Sunday and powerstage points can shift that by a place, though Evans usually claws some back – he was after all second on the powerstage in Chile on a shredded tire.
And Evans rarely gives them the day they need. He’s finished sixth or lower just once all season in clean running – Estonia – the only other times being a Safari retirement and a 34th in Croatia. Even the Chile puncture left him fifth.
Below: If Sardinia is won by… Who ends the season as champion, split by the winner of the finale across 10,000 simulated one-round seasons. Row labels show how often each winner occurs.
What to watch out for
If Solberg wins, Evans is champion 78% of the time. Solberg needs the win and Evans in single figures – probably 8th or below – to take it (22%).
If Pajari wins, it’s closer: Evans 57%, Pajari 43%, because Pajari has four fewer points to find. Evans probably needs to be 6th or lower.
If anyone else wins – and Ogier is most likely – Evans is champion around 97% of the time; a non-contender taking the win hugely caps what Solberg and Pajari can score.
Realistically only an Evans disaster truly reopens it. If he scores fewer than ten points in Sardinia, the title cracks three ways – Evans 52%, Pajari 26%, Solberg 22%. A normal ten-to-seventeen and he’s home 89% of the time; eighteen or more and it’s done.
It could still be close though, and crucially Pajari holds the tie-break. About one finale in five ends with a margin of five points or fewer. A dead heat goes to wins countback, and Pajari’s three wins this year beat Evans’s two and Solberg’s two – so the nearest chaser is also the one who would win a level finish.
