Elfyn Evans’ World Rally Championship hopes suffered a blow after rolling out of a victory fight with Sebastien Ogier at Rally Finland.
The championship leader had been chasing down rally leader Ogier, reducing the gap from 16.3s to 11.6s heading into the final stage of the morning loop (SS14 Leustu) when drama struck.
Evans misjudged a left hander towards the end of the stage which pitched his GR Yaris into a roll. The car landed on its wheels but as Evans attempted to rejoin the road he ran into a ditch. Dozens of spectators, including Evans' father Gwyndaf, came rushing to his aid and eventually pushed the car out of the mud, but 1m49.0s was dropped to the leaders.
Evans managed to drive the damaged car back to service where Toyota will now race to repair the car ahead of the afternoon stages.
“Near the end of the stage, where the organisers added one of these anti-cut blocks, on the side there was a ditch on the outside. We had it marked in the notes but I think I was too optimistic and with such a deep ditch it brought the car into a roll and then we got stuck,” said Evans.
“I haven’t thought that far [about the championship] the only focus is to try and see if we can carry on after service. It is less damage to the car than I expected having sat inside it. Let’s wait and see.”
Evans’ roll dropped the Welshman to fifth overall, two minutes from the lead, while handing Ogier a 22.7s lead over Toyota’s Sami Pajari. Oliver Solberg has now climbed to third, 1m01.5s.
"It has been a good morning and I’m really happy with the loop,” Ogier told Autosport. “We stayed on our plan of not going for the full risk but still of course we were driving fast. We knew that Elfyn and Sami would keep pushing, they were catching us slightly and then on the last one, we had a stage win and Elfyn made a mistake which has given us more room over second now. We can be satisfied with that.”
After hearing about Evans' roll, Ogier stopped to see if he could help his team-mate and rival with any repairs that were required.
“If I could have helped I would do as we are team-mates and we always do that. We have a great relationship together and of course we fight when we put the helmet on, but after that we are there for our team and each other,” added Ogier.
Evans wasn’t the only driver to roll in stage 14, as M-Sport’s Martins Sesks, having been sitting in fifth, lost control of his Ford Puma which barrel rolled into the trees. Sesks and co-driver Renars Francis were OK but the crash is likely to be the end of their rally.
“I think they are fine but the car is not so fine, M-Sport Ford team principal Rich Millener told Autosport. “The conclusion is still a bit raw as to what happened but ultimately he was in a fight with Adrien Fourmaux for position and you have to push. It was a good experience for Martins to be in that fight and he will be disappointed and angry he has made a mistake.
“I can almost guarantee that will be the end of the rally for him as there is no real advantage to fix the damage for two stages tomorrow.”
Sesks’ exit handed fourth to Hyundai’s Fourrmaux, who had been steadily closing in on the M-Sport driver. Fourmaux reached service with some back pain caused by the severe jump landings.
Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta started the day in eighth after a misted up windscreen cost the Japanese two minutes in the heavy rain yesterday. Starting third on the road behind Thierry Neuville and the returning Jon Armstrong, Katsuta climbed into seventh ahead of M-Sport’s Josh McErlean in the first stage of the day, before heading to service in sixth.
Hyundai's Neuville held eighth as the 2024 world champion set his sights on climbing the leaderboard after a mistake in Friday’s stage five that damaged the front left and cost more than two minutes. The Belgian managed to reduce the margin to seventh-placed McErlean to 9.3s.
The top 10 was rounded out by WRC2 leader Robert Virves and Jari-Matti Latvala, the latter making a one-off return in a Rally2 car.
