“Elfyn is a totally changed character this season”

My goodness me, what a difference 24 months make.

This time two years ago, Elfyn Evans left Wales Rally GB very quietly, way too quietly for the liking of some us. In what was billed as the battle of the M-sport young guns, he’d faced Ott Tanak on his home event in a do-or-die fight for the DMACK seat in 2016. And he lost big time.

I remember reporting it at the time as a capitulation, and I stand by that. He appeared to be a little boy lost, not able to find the inner resolve to throw caution to the wind and show us the fighting spirit required to remain part of rallying’s elite. Apparently, in the wake of that disastrous week, he was being lined up for a return to the family business as workshop manager.

Well look at him now. Standing on top of that M-sport Fiesta on the banks of Llyn Brenig on Sunday there were no traces of the boy who slinked away from Rally GB two years ago. We were watching a man, a champion, a leader and a driver completely in control of his own destiny.

So how do we explain this transformation? Well it’s not so difficult. Evans was a boy two years ago doing the bidding of other men. Now he’s very much a man, making his own decisions and in control of his own destiny.

But it would be entirely unfair of me to at all criticise the process and the schooling that young Evans has been put through. Two men have directed that and deserve enormous credit. Elfyn’s dad Gwyndaf is by all accounts a hard task master. But all of that tough love that drove young Elfyn on in the early years was delivered with the utmost loyalty, sincerity and dedication. Elfyn had the perfect role model, and always knew that whatever happened, his father would have his back.

And then there is Malcolm Wilson. There is no better man at spotting and developing young talent in rallying. He has his own style and his own way, but it works. Just look at the current crop. Tanak and Evans were both demoted and made to work hard to repay Wilson’s faith and investment. There are big parallels in the rise of these two boys not just as drivers but as men. Wilson knows when he wants completely subservience, and he knows when it’s time to allow the boy to emerge as the man, a free thinking, responsible and determined challenger fully prepared to deliver.

What a transformation, what a drive, what a win and what a prospect. Roll on 2018, for the first time in the best part of two decades, British rally fans will have the joy of watching two home grown drivers battling it out for the drivers’ title.