ELFYN Evans has reduced his gap to the World Rally Championship championship leader to 18 points after finishing fourth overall with co-driver Scott Martin at Rally Italia Sardegna.
The Dolgellau driver moved a bit closer to Huyndai Shell Mobis World Rally Team’s Tierry Neuville who finished out of the points.The event was won by Huyndai’s Ott Tänak who pipped Evans’ Toyota Gazoo Racing team-mate Sébastien Ogier in a dramatic finish.
Ogier looked set to secure a third consecutive victory together at Rally Italia Sardegna before late drama in the final few kilometres of the event meant they missed out by the narrowest of margins.
Ogier was involved in a close battle for the lead for most of the event, and while a strong Saturday afternoon enabled him to lead into the final day, competition remained intense on Sunday and just 6.2 seconds separated him and rival Ott Tänak going into the deciding Power Stage.
Still, Ogier looked to be doing enough to secure victory until he began losing air from a tyre over the rough final section of stage.
It meant that he and co-driver Vincent Landais ultimately missed out by just 0.2s in a finish that equals the closest ever in FIA World Rally Championship history – coincidentally set by Ogier when he beat his now-Team Principal Jari-Matti Latvala by the same margin in Jordan in 2011.
Ogier still climbs to fourth place in the drivers’ championship, only 30 points from the lead despite contesting only four of the six rounds held so far. Evans and co-driver Scott Martin finished fourth following a challenging start on Friday.
The 35-year-old remained consistent to climb up into the top four by the end of Saturday and carried improved pace into the final day to take third in both the Super Sunday classification and the Power Stage, netting 18 points in total.
Evans said: “It’s been a very difficult weekend for us but today was a bit better.
“I would say the feeling was definitely improved and I think the times and the points that we got from the day showed that.
“Still, it’s clear looking at the weekend overall that we still have a lot of work to do to improve in rallies with conditions like this one.
“The good news is that the characteristics now change to something quite different for the next three rallies.
“We know the car can be strong on fast rallies like those and it will be important to prepare as best we can and try to find confidence early.”
Ogier said: “We knew it could be tough today with some stages that are very rough and maybe not the most suited to us.
“Still, I think we were doing a good enough job to secure the win, but unfortunately we started to lose tyre pressure three kilometres from the end.
“The conditions were very extreme in this Power Stage, even worse than we have seen there before, and I don’t think there was much that I could have done differently.
“It’s something that’s never easy to take, but at the end of the day it doesn’t really change anything in terms of the overall points for the team.
“I think I can still be happy with the weekend I’ve done, and sometimes motorsport just doesn’t go your way. We will come back and try to keep up this level of performance we’ve had.” Next up: Rally Poland (27-30 June ) returns to the WRC for the first time since 2017, offering fast stages on soft and sandy roads around Mikołajki in the Masurian lake district in the north-east of the country.