Although it hasn’t happened since 2017, traditionally a Rally Finland win has always been reserved for a Finn.
Of the 72 Rally Finlands there have been, 55 of them have been won by Finns – equating to over three quarters (76.4%).
Statistically Finland had a strong chance at home rule last weekend, with four of the nine entered Rally1 cars driven by Finns and one of them being the reigning World Rally champion and current points leader.
And Kalle Rovanperä did lead, but was caught out on the eighth special stage and crashed out of the contest.
Esapekka Lappi was the other favorite, but his rally ended even earlier on stage five. It left just Teemu Suninen and Jari-Matti Latvala in the running, and they could only manage fourth and fifth.
Instead it was the winning Welshman, Elfyn Evans, who made history as just the third non Scandinavian, and second non Nordic, driver to win Rally Finland more than once.
Typically, Evans was very understated when reflecting on his success.
“It’s a nice thing to have on the CV and I’m sure in years to come it’ll be something to look back and be proud of,” he told DirtFish.
“But yeah obviously at the moment I’m just happy to collect the points and move on to the next round.”
Toyota sporting director Kaj Lindström was more emphatic with his praise though, labelling Evans’ performance as something “quite unique”.
“Absolutely brilliant driving,” Lindström told DirtFish.
“In a way, he was left out when we talk before the rally who was going to be the winning candidates for this rally, and his name was not mentioned.
“But he did a great job and we have to remember he has won this rally [before].
“If you can fight here against Kalle and Ott [Tänak] and all these boys, EP even, it’s quite unique from a guy from Wales.”
Although Evans felt there was “nothing really that special” in the gains he found that enabled him to quadruple his stage win count for the entire season in Finland – “it’s just a few things coming together that improved the feeling from Estonia, that’s it” – he likened his feeling behind the wheel to what he experienced in Finland 2021.
“It’s a nice feeling and actually quite similar to how I felt here in 2021,” he said, “although I would say the risk was probably a bit higher in 2021 when I won.
“There was obviously a massive fight going on three ways with Ott and Craig [Breen] I think I remember at the time.
“It was then all the way down to the wire let’s say, but I had an equally good feeling in the car this weekend and those times kept coming which was nice.”
Co-driver Scott Martin felt the result was written in the stars.
He explained: “Like Elfyn said, the feeling from the car was good and I’d been saying that since shakedown. If we had the feeling that we know we can, and obviously to finish the day [on Friday] was important and we were conscious we had to do that.
“And then Saturday was just a dream day, with a tricky stage to finish I might add, but from then it felt good in the car, we were putting the times in and now sat here having won the rally it feels like it was kind of in the stars that it was going to happen.
“Elfyn was driving well, the team have done fantastic, it’s great to have Akio-san [Toyoda] here with us to celerbate the victory, so really, really happy.
“To win this event once is a big thing, so to do it twice is pretty massive. It’s maybe not sunk in fully yet and we maybe don’t realize it yet, but I was starting to think about it and say it to Elfyn.
“He agrees with me. He maybe doesn’t show it! But I could see he agreed. We’ve been so concentrated and so focused it takes a while to realize what we’ve done but it’s amazing.
“It’s like a home rally for the team so it almost feels like a second home to me also. I’ve been here many, many years and had some great results in the past, so it feels a special one just like it did in 2021.”
