CALM EVANS REAPS REWARDS AS RIVALS HIT TROUBLE
Elfyn Evans didn’t look a likely Rally Turkey winner at the start of day three, but his cautious approach has given his title hopes a huge boost
Acautious approach to Rally Turkey rewarded Elfyn Evans with the second victory of his 2020 World Rally Championship campaign and the third of his WRC career. The Welshman now leads Toyota team-mate Sebastien Ogier by 18 points in the drivers’ standings with two rounds still scheduled for 2020, and has given British fans hope of hailing their first champion since Richard Burns in 2001.
Rally Turkey is based near the Mediterranean resort town of Marmaris, where a modest entry of 24 cars gathered for an event that was shorter than in previous years, to the tune of 54 stage miles. Also absent would be members of the public, in deference to the ongoing pandemic.
When the action got under way last Friday afternoon, Hyundai took the initiative with Thierry Neuville winning the first stage in front his team-mates Sebastien Loeb and Ott Tanak, as the trio of Toyotas formed an orderly queue behind them.
The second stage was plagued by hanging dust that refused to clear away from between the trees. Swirling clouds hampered many contenders, but when Loeb put all his faith in the pacenotes he was able to set a time fast enough (second, behind Ogier) to take the overnight lead. So it was that fans around the world enjoyed a misty-eyed evening during which, not for the first time among these post-retirement cameo appearances, they dared to dream of the maestro claiming his 80th career win in the top flight.
When morning came, however, Toyota’s pre-event championship leader Ogier made it clear that a Hyundai 1-2-3 did not fit with his plans for the weekend. He won the opening 20-mile stage of the day from Neuville by a scant 1.8 seconds, but this was enough to edge him into the overall lead.
Ogier again set the fastest time on the next stage, while Tanak’s rally came to a sudden end when his steering failed, causing him to miss a gentle right-hander and wedge his i20 WRC in a bush. After a cursory look inside the right-front wheelarch, the Estonian waved a disparaging hand and stalked off into the countryside.
For overnight leader Loeb, meanwhile, a gamble on running two medium-compound tyres alongside the preferred hard compound did not pay off. This left him with a less-than-optimal set-up for the rest of the morning while lugging a pair of raddled mediums around in the boot and slipping to fourth, almost 22s adrift of new leader Ogier at the service halt.
An extra layer of drama was added to the morning loop when it was paused in order to safely remove some intrepid fans. Despite the spectator-free status of the rally in deference to COVID prevention, large gatherings of people could be seen in the hills looking down on certain sections of the route. Some individuals tried to get a closer look but were caught by the FIA’S new safety protocols: the delay was short-lived and the transgression was not repeated.
Amid such drama, third place was taken up by Evans’s Toyota in its measured slog through the stages, with Loeb closing up to him as the Hyundai returnee in turn made his bid for the podium.
Also chasing third place was Kalle Rovanpera’s Toyota Yaris WRC. The young Finn sought to make the most of the faster stages, where his bravado paid huge
“I’M GOING TO TRY TO DO MY
BEST TOMORROW AND HOPEFULLY WE’RE GOING TO SURVIVE”
dividends, but was required to balance this raw speed with a need to preserve his tyres, leading to a cat-and-mouse pursuit of Evans and Loeb.
Saturday’s afternoon loop began with Ogier suffering transmission issues and a puncture, while Neuville hustled a Hyundai that was much more to his liking to claim an advantage of almost 22s.
Ogier was back on the pace for the next stage and surrendered just 0.2s to Neuville, who then launched a blistering attack on stage eight that stretched his lead to 33.2s. But he was not the fastest man through the stage. That would be Loeb, who shaded Neuville by 0.9s and drew himself level with his former nemesis Ogier in second on the overnight leaderboard.
On most rallies, a lead of more than half a minute with just four stages remaining can give drivers justifiable cause for optimism. Turkey is rather a different proposition to most rallies, though, and Neuville refused to get too excited. “I mean, we have seen Ogier getting a puncture close to the end of the stage so he continued pushing and he’s still in P2,” said the Belgian. “I’m going to try to do my best tomorrow and hopefully we’re going to survive.”
On the final morning, the lead duo picked up where they had left off as they entered the notorious 24-mile Cetibeli test but they were both forced to stop and change wheels, as was Loeb. So it was that Evans’s game of patience paid
dividends as he emerged from the stage with a mighty 47s advantage overthe erstwhile leaders.
Neuville drove flat-out to leapfrog Ogier and attempt to close the gap to Evans in case he suffered the slightest delay. But on the second pass through Cetibeli it was Ogier’s Yaris WRC that began emitting smoke and the six-time champion retired.
Team tactics were hard to implement amid the chaos, but Hyundai played its joker in the form of Tanak, who had restarted in the hope of salvaging some points from the powerstage that closed the event. Tanak had taken a road penalty to push Ogier in front of him and then slotted into place in front of his two team-mates on the penultimate stage.
After launching away from the start, Tanak abruptly parked up to allow both Neuville and Loeb through in front of him. Shortly afterwards, the reigning champion stretched every sinew to set a blistering powerstage time of 4m20.8s in the hope of maintaining a toehold on this year’s crown.
Habitual powerstage frontrunner Rovanpera took a cautious approach to preserve his points for the manufacturers’ championship, and Loeb also limited himself to defending third place overall on what may well prove to be his final appearance in a works WRC car.
Tanak appeared set to claim the powerstage honours until Neuville hurled his Hyundai through to log a time 0.4s faster and in so doing held the gap between himself and his team-mate to just five points in the title race. “Definitely no good feelings,” Tanak growled. “It’s been a shit weekend.”
That view was broadly shared by the M-sport squad, which could not get its Ford Fiestas anywhere close to the pace of the Toyotas or Hyundais. Despite the lack of speed, Teemu Suninen had diligently picked his way through the stages to the first pass through Cetibeli, whereupon his suspension broke.
“When Teemu retired, the chain of events after that would have meant we would have been probably in second place, which would have been fantastic,” reflected team boss Richard Millener. “The thing is, it’s what rallying’s about I suppose. We’ve got to keep our heads up and it hasn’t come off for us this weekend. It’s not been so straightforward, but Gus is still going in a strong position. There are some positives.”
Gus Greensmith did indeed provide M-sport with some cheer, as the young Englishman’s fifth place became a new personal best in his fledgling WRC career. After an altercation with the scenery in shakedown, and with minimal pre-event testing time available, he took satisfaction from heading his highly rated team-mate Esapekka Lappi to the finish.
“I was hoping for a little bit more at the beginning,” said Greensmith, “but I’m pretty happy, and thanks to the team because it took a lot of work to get the car from where it was to where it is.”
Nevertheless, Rally Turkey belonged to Evans, the new WRC points leader enjoying a slightly bashful celebration, keenly aware that his win had been a case of keeping cool and letting others expose themselves to greater risk. “We really tried to drive well and stay in the middle of the road and, you know, that did reward us,” said the first two-time winner of the 2020 WRC.
“IT’S NOT, LET’S SAY, THE SWEETEST VICTORY KNOWING YOU’VE PERHAPS BEEN A BIT MORE CONSERVATIVE”
“I’m also aware that there needs to be a bit of luck that needs to go your way and I never like to inherit positions in that way, but this is the nature of Rally Turkey especially and we knew this coming into the weekend… It’s not, let’s say, the sweetest victory knowing you’ve perhaps been a bit more conservative, but it’s the name of the game.”
Hyundai team principal Andrea Adamo was equally sanguine about the result, despite surrendering priceless points towards his team’s defence of the manufacturers’ crown and having two thunderously disappointed drivers to deal with in the forms of Neuville and Tanak. “It has happened to others that have had punctures in the past that allow us to win and life is a turning circle, no?” he said.
In the WRC2 category, points leader Mads Ostberg was absent from the cockpit and this allowed fellow WRC refugee Pontus Tidemand (Skoda) to take his second victory of the year and claim a narrow lead in the standings.
The Swede’s nearest challenger was Frenchman Adrien Fourmaux in M-sport’s Fiesta, with Eyvind Brynildsen coming home a distant third after several issues for his Skoda through the weekend.
In WRC3, victory went to the Skoda of Kajetan Kajetanowicz, the Pole keeping in front of Bolivian points leader Marco Bulacia and local hero Yagiz Avci.