EVANS GETS REVENGE FOR CROATIA DEFEAT WITH BARNSTORMING WIN IN PORTUGAL
A strong push through Sunday morning helped the Toyota man reach the top.
By his own admission, Elfyn Evans wasn’t the fastest driver on Rally of Portugal. Crucially, however, he was faster than Dani Sordo when it mattered most.
Evans, who told Motorsport
News before the start of the “hurt” he suffered after missing out on winning last month’s Croatia Rally by 0.6s, had been winless in the WRC in 2021.
Heading to Porto’s seaside superspecial on Saturday evening with a 16.4s margin over Sordo, there was a good chance that Evans would be winless no more and the pain of defeat would subside.
His Toyota team-mate Sebastien Ogier, the reigning World champion and the man who edged out Evans in Croatia, was more than one minute in arrears after 14 stages, while Hyundai pair Thierry Neuville and Ott Tanak had both come unstuck on the tricky Portuguese roads, which had been starved of WRC action for 12 months due to Covid-19 leading to last year’s event being canned.
But those 16.4s Evans had in hand over Sordo had been narrowed to
10.7s by the time the two-mile street course was done.
Evans had been on tyre preservation mode, while Sordo switched to ‘karting mode’, capitalising on lessons learned driving karts to seek out the optimal line. Despite concerns caused by a starter motor glitch prior to the superspecial getting underway,
Sordo was back in the fight with five, albeit relatively short, Sunday stages remaining.
“I felt we had good grip [on the superspecial] so tried to keep clean and not lose too much time,” said Sordo at the completion of Saturday’s leg. “We could catch some time back to Evans and we’re now just 10 seconds behind. He was a little bit faster today, but tomorrow is another day. I would like to win, it will be maximum attack.”
There was also an “order” from above for Sordo to nose ahead of Evans in no uncertain terms. Riled by watching first Neuville and then Tanak retire, Hyundai team chief Andrea Adamo was desperate for his returning driver to snatch victory from the jaws of a second straight Toyota defeat.
“Dani has the clear order to fight for the win,” Adamo insisted. “He has to try all he can to win.”
What happened next was the ultimate reversal of fortune. From seemingly being under pressure one minute due to his trimmed advantage, Evans was back in the ascendancy with what he described as “quite a big push” through Sunday’s opener, which put him 20.3s clear. Evans then beat Sordo on the next three stages to the extent he would start the powerstage 26.2s in front. Sordo, like Adamo, had all but lost.
Unlike in Croatia, where his 3.9s advantage prior to the closing run was ultimately not enough, in Portugal Evans’ healthy lead was never under threat on the final stage with the Welshman even managing to extend his gap to Sordo to 28.3s, courtesy of the fifth fastest time.
That effort provided Evans and co-driver Scott Martin with a World championship bonus point and means Ogier and
Julien Ingrassia – who lost chunks of time opening the road on leg one and also suffered a rare half-spin – will be a mere two points in front of Evans when Sardinia hosts round five of the season next week.
“A few have slipped away recently and I wanted to make sure we delivered this time,” Evans said afterwards with a nod to his late defeats in Monza last season and in Croatia this year. “It wasn’t easy and going back to a full-length rally and the recce was really intense.
“Obviously we didn’t have so much spare time to play with. It was going to be a big fight [on the final day] as far as I was concerned so it was important to go well from the off. On the back of [Croatia] I am happy to move forward.”
Although he had no answer to Evans, Sordo was magnanimous in defeat.
“I am a bit disappointed that I could not catch Elfyn for the win, but he was faster today. If you’re faster, then you win.”
Sordo had been winning, by 8.2s in fact, only for a stall on SS7 to cost him 10s and drop him behind Tanak and Evans into third. Tyre issues then hampered his
efforts to recover lost ground and he was 3.0s behind Evans and 9.0s down on Tanak at the Friday night halt, by which time Hyundai’s challenge had been cut from three to two following Neuville’s roll on SS7, while the Belgian was in a strong second place.
“The pacenote was too fast,” Neuville explained. “When I saw the corner I tried to correct it but there was something like a tree stump that pulled us onto our side.”
Neuville did eventually complete the stage but makeshift repairs on the road section failed and he would retire soon after.
His restart on Saturday lasted until
SS11 when the order was given to return to service to carry out a full repair ahead of a powerstage push on Sunday.
Tanak’s i20 Coupe WRC was also being primed for a similar final-stage charge before Saturday’s leg was over. He’d damaged the right-rear suspension on SS14 while leading Evans by more than 20s. Despite gallantly trying to drag his broken car to the stage finish, Tanak called time three miles before the end of the stage.
“It was far from a great end after what had been a nice and enjoyable day to that point,” said a dejected Tanak, who had been on course to become the first double winner of 2021 prior to his exit.
Tanak returned on Sunday minus any spare tyres and his usual full-face helmet in order to save as much weight as possible in his ultimately successful bid to win the powerstage and snatch five, potentially crucial, points.
Behind Ogier, Japanese driver Takamoto Katsuta – with Brit Dan Barritt co-driving – scored a careerbest fourth. Gus Greensmith equalled his PB for M-Sport in fifth ahead of team-mate Adrien Fourmaux.