It hasn’t been the most pleasant of years for Elfyn Evans in the World Rally Championship. Indeed, the season promised so much more for the Toyota driver.
Heartbreak at the final round in 2020 saw him lose out on the championship, and he was once again bested in 2021.
So, 2022 was a new opening for Evans to finally take his first World Rally Championship title.
With Sébastien Ogier, the man who beat Evans to the title in the past two seasons, no longer in a full-time WRC role, the opportunity was handed to the 33-year-old to potentially take his place at the top of the championship.
But team-mate Kalle Rovanperä has had other ideas, dominating the entire year while Evans has struggled to find his true form and is yet to win an event in 2022.
Toyota’s technical director Tom Fowler has simply put the rut Evans has found himself in down to pure bad luck and is not concerned about the pace his driver has.
“Elfyn’s had a difficult season, as we know,” he told DirtFish.
“For sure [he] hasn’t had the luck behind him. I think the most frustrating thing, particularly for him, is the fact he has been so fast. In Greece, on Acropolis Rally as you know as a team, we struggled but Elfyn was our strongest contender on that rally.
“He took the car, even though it wasn’t completely to his liking and not set up really well for the event, and said this is the tool we’ve got, I’m going to get the most out of it, and he was going really well.
“So yeah, I think there’s been pros and cons to his season but always having a little bit of bad luck.”
The pace has indeed been there. In the 11 contested rallies so far, Evans has finished second in four of them. But results elsewhere have hurt the Toyota driver.
His season got off to a rocky start with crashes in the first two rallies, both while running in the top three.
And in the two most recent rallies, Evans was forced out of contention once more. An engine issue in Greece ended his rally early and then a crash in New Zealand had the same fate.
But Fowler believes it’s not a case of changing his driving style completely in order to match his team-mate Rovanperä. The solution is much simpler than that.
“I’m not sure that’s the case. I think Elfyn doesn’t need to change the way he’s driving,” he said.
“I think he just needs a fresh season to start a new campaign, and everything will be fine.
“Yeah, I think as soon as you clean the board and everyone’s on the same level again, you can bury a lot of things in the past and say, ‘here we go again, I’ve done it before I can do it now’.”
