The 2022 World Rally Championship just isn’t getting any easier for Elfyn Evans.
After a tough start to the season, it looked as though Evans was on the verge of having a breakthrough with his Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 when he finished second behind team-mate Kalle Rovanperä in Portugal, but it didn’t last long.
Italy proved to be another incredibly challenging event for Evans, after he retired with technical issues on the fourth stage of the rally.
It was a frustrating result, for Evans had looked to be competitive in the three stages prior, even winning the second stage, Terranova. But while he was frustrated to leave Italy without any points, firmly rooted in sixth position in the championship, he did see a positive amidst the doom and gloom.
“I think when things were going, I think the speed was pretty good,” Evans explained to DirtFish.
“You know, I think that’s one positive. But yeah, unfortunately, just no points again.
“It’s sort of been the story of the season, with the exception of maybe Croatia where we struggled a bit for pace.
“Then otherwise, the pace has been good pretty much everywhere, but just no points unfortunately.”
There’s no doubt Evans is a talented driver. He wouldn’t have finished runner-up to Sébastien Ogier for two years on the bounce otherwise. But when asked whether his poor run of results was primarily down to misfortune, the Toyota driver looked at things philosophically.
“I mean, it’s two sides of the coin isn’t it?
“You can just call it luck, or you have to look at what goes wrong as well.
“I think, in all honesty, it’s probably a bit of a mixture of both in there somewhere. But yeah, it would be nice to turn it around, for sure.”
Evans’ result in Italy means he is now a whopping 81 points behind championship leader Rovanperä. What was meant to be his greatest year to become world champion looks anything but right now.
It’s not lost on Evans that the title fight is now realistically out of reach, but he’s standing firm in his approach to each event.
“I haven’t looked at the points, but it’s a massive gap, obviously,” he said.
“I mean, it was already difficult and now it’s very difficult.
There’s results there to be had for us, for the team and we'll continue to work and fight for themElfyn Evans
“You want to put it like that it’s almost not doable, but, it doesn’t change any way how I go to rallies, because you know how I go to rally. So we will continue to work just the same.
“There’s results there to be had for us, for the team and we’ll continue to work and fight for them.
“The approach to rallies, you come in, you do your best, always with the view to get the best result possible. And that’s it.
“So coming to events, nothing really changes for me, but yeah, if you want to talk about chances, then of course, the chances are pretty slim.”
