Ask Elfyn Evans who’s still in this year’s World Rally Championship title fight and he smiles a wry smile. Mentally, he’s going down the list and he’s not stopping.
The Welshman has arrived at the season’s halfway point with a 20-point advantage over fellow Toyota driver Takamoto Katsuta. But with seven gravel outings still to come in 2026, he’s taking nothing for granted.
Twelve months ago, Evans was nine points ahead of his nearest challenger (Sébastien Ogier), but crucially there were two asphalt rallies in the second half of 2025.
“The second half of the year on gravel is going to be tough,” Evans told DirtFish. “There’s still a lot to come and a lot can happen. This is sport, it’s so unpredictable, we never know how things are going to turn out.
“I don’t know how far down you have to go in the championship table to realistically be writing people off for the title. I think it’s so open with seven rounds to go so many points available across every weekend. That’s the reality, it is that open as I see it.
Evans has as many victories (two) and podiums (five) as anyone else, but knows he faces a big handicap on the remaining gravel rounds
“That’s why my approach is completely unchanged – starting further back on the road on gravel rallies brings such a massive benefit. It’s very difficult to manage that with the current points system.”
Oliver Solberg sits third in the title race, 49 points down
“Given his speed,” added Evans, “I definitely consider Oliver a championship rival still. Like I said, you can go a very long way down the list…”
Reflecting on the first half of the year and despite his position out front, Evans admitted there were frustrations.
“On the whole, it’s been a good start to the year,” he said, “but I still feel a little bit frustrated. Obviously the two DNFs in Safari and Croatia have been really hurtful to our championship in a way – they were both rallies where we were performing pretty well and, let’s say, if you could have added decent podium scores at both them rallies then things would look very different again. Trust me to find the negatives!”
Evans’ Kenyan outing was spoiled by a double puncture which turned into suspension failure on the following stage, ruling him out of Saturday afternoon’s action. He was running second at the time. He then crashed out of the lead after some pacenote confusion on Friday morning in Croatia.
