World Rally Championship leader Elfyn Evans admitted he would consider dropping points to avoid running first on the road if the title fight goes down to the wire in Saudi Arabia.
The Welshman has led the race for this year’s championship since April’s Rally Islas Canarias and takes a 17-point advantage to the penultimate round of the series in Sardinia next month. But he’s keenly aware of the potential pitfalls of running first on the rough roads around Jeddah.
Evans headed Toyota team-mate Sébastien Ogier by three points when they arrived at Rally Saudi Arabia last year. Running first and second on the road, neither driver was able to make an impact on the early leaderboard with the Frenchman sixth going into the final day, while Evans sat eighth after stopping to change a puncture effectively ended his hopes of clinching a maiden world title.
Ogier went on to lift a ninth championship, but finished the event more than a minute down on winner Thierry Neuville who ran fifth on the road on the opening day.
Asked about the potential for dropping points and taking a strategic approach to Rally Saudi Arabia, Evans told DirtFish: “It’s a difficult call. I’ve never been a fan of deliberately not scoring points. You never know what happens. But obviously, having seen how bad the road cleaning was there last year, I think you’d be stupid not to consider it if the opportunity came. But I think for now it’ll just be to do the best job possible in Sardinia and that’s all.”
Having enjoyed a 30-point lead in the drivers’ standings coming out of Secto Rally Finland, Evans admitted he had feared the worst in the face of more dry gravel rallies.
He added: “I was expecting to lose the lead of the championship by now, to be honest, after opening the road for so many rallies.
“In my mind it was quite clear that was going to happen, but somehow we’ve hung on and hung on, I just hope it doesn’t come to bite us just at the end.”
Twenty points up at the start of Rally Chile, Evans was looking good to further extend his advantage in Concepción until a puncture cost him two minutes and dropped him from second to fifth. He now heads Sami Pajari by 17 points and Oliver Solberg by 21.
“I would have rather it be 30 after I got my points from today,” said Evans, reflecting on his Chile disapointement. “But at the end of the day, it is what it is now, and we’re going to have to continue with the same rhythm, same strategy.
“It’s all open, basically. It’s a full three-way fight.”
