EVANS GETS A WRC TITLE BOOST AFTER ROVANPERA ADMITS TO CROATIA WEAKNESS
Points leader’s 2021 crash leaves him light of knowledge on a rally where Welshman shone
Elfyn Evans has been handed an early boost in his bid to reignite his faltering World Rally Championship title challenge.
Runner-up for the past two years, Evans is 42 points behind Toyota team-mate and form man Kalle Rovanpera ahead of the Croatia Rally, which hosts round three of the season from April 21-24.
While Evans – who has failed to complete a rally distance in 2022 – excelled on the slippery Croatian asphalt last April and only missed out on victory to Sebastien Ogier by 0.6s, Rovanpera crashed into retirement on the opening stage.
With the 2022 Croatia Rally route largely unaltered, save for the addition of two new stages, Rovanpera – who tops the title table by 14 points – fears he could be at a disadvantage.
“It’s nice to have a good gap in the points even though it’s only two rallies into the season,” the 21-year-old Finn said following his pre-Croatia Rally test last week. “But the biggest challenge is to manage the experience gap to the guys who could do the full rally last year because we did almost the full first stage and after that we don’t have any experience.
“In an event like this where it seems that the conditions and the grip and the stages are quite difficult, with less experience it can be quite tricky to manage.”
Evans, 33, also completed his pre-Croatia running last week but insists his only focus is on a mistake-free event, not his championship-leading team-mate.
“It’s not been the start to the season we wanted by a long way, so we need to get off to a strong start [in Croatia],” the Welshman said. “We really can’t afford other mistakes, that’s clear and we have to focus on the performance ahead of us and concentrate on driving as well as possible.”