Elfyn Evans says it would be “a problem” if cars became “sandwiched between” himself and title rival Sébastien Ogier on the Monza Rally in their battle for the World Rally Championship crown.
After six of the rally’s 16 stages, Evans is fourth overall, 5.1 seconds behind Ogier who is third.
With a 14-point cushion over his team-mate, this current scenario would be enough to net Evans a maiden world title regardless of powerstage positions.
But Ogier is closing on the rally leaders – he is just 12s adrift of Dani Sordo’s Hyundai, which heads the pack – while in turn, Evans has Ott Tänak just 0.6s behind him ahead of Saturday’s stages in the mountains.
The more cars between Ogier can get between himself and Evans on the leaderboard, the stronger his championship hand becomes. Naturally, Evans doesn’t want that.
“It’s not perfect, it can always be better,” Evans told DirtFish when asked about his overnight position.
“It’s a little bit putting it in other people’s hands let’s say to be like that.
“Obviously if we can maintain one position behind Seb that’s fine but if we start to get cars sandwiched between us, that becomes a problem then.”
Asked how he is dealing with what’s at stake, knowing that a mistake could curtail his world championship bid, Evans replied: “It’s true, but at the same time if you brought the risk factor to zero we’d be right, right at the back so there’s a balance there to try and strike and it’s not an easy position to be in to be honest.
“But we’re, for the most part, managing to forget about it and just concentrate on driving as well as we can and really focusing on driving clean, perhaps not making anything overly spectacular but doing something that works.”
Ogier ended Friday happy with where he lies, but said he knows that without a couple of overshoots on Friday he could’ve been closer to the lead, which would have put even more pressure on Evans.
Photo: Toyota Gazoo Racing
“It’s been challenging. It was nearly impossible to drive this day without mistakes,” Ogier told DirtFish.
“We’ve done a few unfortunately. I think pace was good but unfortunately I got caught a couple of times with this grip change, it’s hard to drive on the limit.
“The feeling is good with the car, like I say pace is good, and most important we [are] still in a good position tonight to fight for the win so that’s what we need.
He added: “There is still enough guys in the fight for the win so [the] only thing I need to do is myself be in front and then continue to put pressure on Elfyn for the championship.”
