There is no doubt the past two rounds of the World Rally Championship have been tough for Elfyn Evans. The wheels didn’t come off his WRC title charge in Portugal and Sardinia, but they might have wobbled.
The next two months offer the Toyota driver the perfect opportunity to turn that around. Three fast gravel rallies in a row in Poland, Latvia and Finland should be more to the liking of both Evans and his GR Yaris Rally1, and the Welshman believes he goes into this high-speed triple-header with a solid foundation to build on.
“It’s an opportunity for us to get it right,” last year’s Secto Rally Finland winner told DirtFish.
“I think we should have a good base that, in theory, the car should work from the likes of Finland and Chile last year. So we really need to try and hit the ground running when we get to the fast rallies.”
Looking at Portugal and Sardinia in isolation, it’s easy to forget that Evans made a strong start to his 2024 campaign. With three podium finishes from the first four events, he quickly emerged as one of the main championship protagonists alongside Thierry Neuville.
Evans struggled in Poland with M-Sport Fiesta but has excelled on fast gravel since switching to Toyota
Despite the Portuguese and Italian setbacks, Evans still finds himself well-placed. He is level on points with second-placed Ott Tänak and closed the gap to Neuville from 24 to 18 points in Sardinia.
What has been cause for concern is that Evans is still struggling with the machinery under him. On the last two gravel events, there was repeated mention of a lack of feeling, and a struggle to get the Yaris to rotate as he wanted. Perhaps more worryingly for the Toyota driver, he looked to be struggling to find a solution to the set-up conundrum.
Progress made on the final day in Sardinia provided encouragement, but it’s clear that Evans needs to rediscover the form that allowed him to score podiums in Monte Carlo, Sweden and Croatia and, even more importantly, to challenge for outright victory once again.
Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala believes that part of Evans’ problem is that he has become too focused on the championship.
Latvala said: “What I see with Elfyn is he doesn’t have that relaxed feeling for the driving at the moment. I think he has been thinking about the championship and the points too much that you lose the natural ability to drive.”
Evans disagrees. “That’s not the case,” he responded. “I’ve basically been struggling like hell with the car since the start of Portugal. I mean, I think we’ve made some progress to get the feeling back of old, let’s say, but yeah, at the moment it’s been difficult from that side.”
And it is those final-day improvements in Sardinia that give Evans encouragement that he’s on the right track heading into the second half of the season.
“I mean, when the feeling of it came back,” he added, “then the driving immediately improved with it. And, basically, I need to get the feeling back that I’m used to with this car and then it should be fine.”
