SHUNT CAPS A TROUBLED TIME FOR WELSHMAN EVANS
Out of contention for the World
Rally Championship title after retiring from the podium battle in Greece last month with a technical issue, Welshman Elfyn Evans had nothing to lose ahead of his Rally New Zealand debut.
Without a win in 2022, the WRC’s runner-up in 2020 and 2021 showed early promise when he went fastest on the first visit to Te Akau South, the rally’s longest stage at 19.56 miles, on Friday morning.
He was 1.3s behind Sebastien Ogier ahead of its rerun in the afternoon only to drop precious seconds when he was caught out in heavy rain, reporting a lack of visibility and plenty of aquaplaning.
With overnight leader Ott Tanak penalised (see main report), Evans began Saturday’s leg at the head of the pack. He was in front by 2.9s prior to stage nine where everything went wrong for Evans and co-driver Scott
Martin after they spun into a bank and rolled.
Although they made it back to midday service in Auckland after making running repairs – including filling a leaking radiator with rainwater – checks revealed damage to the rollcage of their Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 and they were forced to retire from fourth position.
“In a downhill braking we were a bit too fast and lost control of the rear of the car,” Evans said. “There was no chance to recover it with the throttle and we touched the bank on the inside and rolled the car. Thankfully we landed on our wheels and were able to carry on. Cosmetically the car didn’t look so good but it was still driving remarkably well. There was a small leak which we managed to plug so that we could bring the car back to service, but unfortunately there was some rollcage damage detected and we had to retire.”