Elfyn Evans is now on his third hybrid unit of the Monte Carlo Rally with Toyota crossing its fingers and hoping the system holds until the end of the rally.
The Welshman suffered successive failures on Friday and Saturday, with the latter contributing to his loss of the lead of the opening WRC round of the season.
Asked about the issues aboard the #33 GR Yaris Rally1, Toyota technical director Tom Fowler told DirtFish: “The first problem he had – on Friday – is quite a well-known one. It’s actually the first ever hybrid problem we had back in Sweden 2022, when we couldn’t get out parc fermé because the clutch wouldn’t engage the drive into the system.
“That first issue didn’t actually affect any stages: he had a difficulty leaving service yesterday morning. As per the regulations, we informed the organizers in advance [of the issue] and were then allowed to use the engine to get the car moving.
Evans has been frustrated by hybrid issues aboard his Toyota GR Yaris Rally1
“The second issue is more of a mystery. We changed the unit because of the clutch problem yesterday, but the second one has had some of these faults which can be fixed with a system reset – Elfyn had a couple of those during today and unfortunately one occurred during the middle of a stage, so he lost performance.
“We changed it at the next service, so he’s now on his third hybrid unit of the event.”
Such a change has only been made possible by a recent rule change which permits the teams to share hybrid units across the cars. Previously, each car was allocated two units, but now those two units can be shared – meaning Toyota effectively has six to choose from in Monte Carlo.
Asked if he was confident of no further hybrid issues for the Welshman, Fowler concluded: “I think it wouldn’t be fair to say we’re confident we’ve fixed the issue. There’s still some difficulties with these units where faults come and go and we don’t know the answer or the reason.”
