Метка: Elfyn Evans

Evans feels “new ideas” are required after WRC Portugal struggles

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


The Toyota driver felt that “everything he touched went wrong” last weekend as he witnessed his six-point deficit to championship leader Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville balloon to 24 points.

Evans’ difficulties began on Friday as he and his Toyota team-mates Sebastien Ogier, Kalle Rovanpera and Takamoto Katsuta struggled to find a balance with their GR Yaris Rally1 cars on the gravel stages.

This, on top of starting second on the road dropped Evans down the leaderboard before co-driver Scott Martin left his pacenote book at the stage 6 time control, which forced Evans to drive to notes being delivered from a digital copy on a mobile phone.

While the Welshman lost minimal time from the pacenotes, he conceded 52.6s to a puncture that left him in sixth at the end of Saturday. A broken radiator put his rally at risk on Sunday and subsequently ended any chances of scoring extra points, leaving him with six Saturday points, compared to Neuville’s total of 24.

With the rough gravel of Sardinia, the next destination on the WRC calendar (30 May- 2 June), Evans is hopeful his team can find a set-up solution to his Portugal struggles.

“The six points is the only positive. Of course, you want to forget the weekend, but we have to learn from it and be ready for the next one,” Evans told Motorsport.com.

“It will be difficult now with the current testing situation, but we definitely need to come up with some new ideas for Sardinia.

When asked if there was time to find a solution, he added: “Possibly, but it is obviously a risk to take something without trying it but maybe we need to look back to the past, we will see, we will discuss with the team.”

Toyota opted to conduct its pre-event Portugal test in Sardinia in order to prepare for the two gravel rallies, with test days limited under the FIA’s testing regulations.

Team principal Jari-Matti Latvala is however confident his cars will perform better in Sardinia. 

“I think on Saturday we could see we were improving with the performance of the car, so this was a good step forward,” Latvala told Motorsport.com.

“I’m not so worried about Sardinia but the biggest thing is we just need to stay on the road, because the current championship doesn’t allow you to do so many mistakes. The punishment is quite hard.”

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Driving to smartphone WRC pacenotes “almost as good as normal”

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


Evans was forced to drive to pacenotes read from a smartphone by his co-driver Scott Martin for three stages after the latter left his pacenote book at time control at the end of stage six.

The unusual incident was triggered by a bottleneck at the end of stage 6. Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe faced a delay as officials marked their timecard that required Wydaeghe to exit his vehicle to speak to officials.

The issue hadn’t been resolved by the time Evans pulled up resulting in Martin leaving the car to hand his timecard to an official. Martin opted to carry his pacenote book with him to the time control desk and accidentally left the book on the table before returning back to his Toyota.

After realising he was without his pacenotes, Martin was forced to resort to reading a digitised set of pacenotes from his tiny mobile phone screen. Luckily the veteran co-driver has always created digital notes as backup — this being the first time he has needed to deploy them.

While using a smartphone brought with it unique challenges, Evans was impressed by how well his co-driver coped.

“I was very surprised how well he was doing to be honest,” Evans told Motorsport.com. “There was obviously the odd stumble when the phone didn’t do what he wanted, but otherwise it wasn’t disturbing and almost as good as the normal thing.”

Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images

Martin admitted the moment he realised the error brought on a moment of panic, but he was glad he had a backup plan and surprised himself by how well he coped.

“I thought to myself one day I might be in the situation where I don’t have them [pacenotes] or they are lost,” Martin told Motorsport.com. “You never stop learning and thinking of ways to have yourself covered.

“I say it quite a lot to expect the unexpected and try to have a backup plan. All those years of scanning them and having them digitally paid off.

“I didn’t know how it was going to go. My eyes were starting to get a bit weaker especially when you are looking at digital screens. I surprised myself. I was just worried about all kinds of things like making sure the phone was on airplane mode and thinking about all the things the phone has that you don’t really use. I had nothing distracting me, so no notifications popping up.”

Elfyn Evans, Scott Martin, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota GR Yaris Rally1

Elfyn Evans, Scott Martin, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota GR Yaris Rally1

Photo by: Toyota Racing

When asked if the system could be the future of co-driving, Martin added: “I don’t believe it is the future, I still like pen and paper.”

The pacenote issue contributed to what was a difficult day for Evans who had been struggling for confidence in his GR Yaris before a puncture in stage seven quashed any hopes of a podium finish.

“There is not a lot of positives to take, basically everything we touched has gone wrong, but that is how it is,” said Evans who ended Friday in eighth, 1m43.2s adrift of leader Kalle Rovanpera with title rival Neuville in sixth.

“I think we worked through some things that felt better [on the car] but I still don’t think we found the ultimate package yet. I think there are answers in there somewhere.

“It is just about learning something now, I think. There is nothing to fight for as such in terms of catching somebody on pure pace unless somebody has trouble, so we just try to go out there and have a good feeling with the car.”



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2025 WRC Rally1 prototype “not so exciting” after first test

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


Evans was offered a brief taste of the future when he piloted a modified Toyota GR Yaris during his pre-event Croatia Rally test last month.

Fan vision captured from the test showcased the GR Yaris running with revised aerodynamics centred around the rear wing, which appeared to conform to the FIA’s proposed 2025 regulations. It is understood Toyota is the only team that has attempted to create and test a 2025 prototype.

The FIA intends to reduce the performance of Rally1 cars for next season by removing hybrid power alongside a reduction in aero and air restrictor, to bring the cars more in line with Rally2 vehicles. This combined with a proposed upgrade kit for Rally2 cars is hoped to create a larger entry of competitors to battle at the sharp end of rallies next year.

The new regulations have been strongly opposed by WRC teams and drivers, with the former requesting the current rules stay in place until the end of 2026.

Asked for his opinion on the car following the test, Evans was blunt in his response stating it was “as expected” before elaborating further.

“I can tell you that it was not so exciting,” he said.

“I started and finished my run, so I guess if that is your definition of driveable, then I guess it was.”

Pressed on if this is the right direction for the WRC next year, he replied: “My opinion is quite clear.”

The FIA is understood to be working on a compromise with teams regarding the 2025 technical regulations, which could be communicated to stakeholders this month, before June’s World Motor Sport Council meeting. 

FIA road sport director Andrew Wheatley offered further details of the proposed rule changes for 2025 during a media roundtable in Croatia. 

“At the start of the five-year Rally1 process it was very clear that the hybrid element was a three-year contract, and that is what we have with [supplier] Compact Dynamics, but we are not changing the concept of Rally1,” he said. 

“The only discussion we are having about changing Rally1 is to modify the rear wing. We want to take one plane of the rear wing off, we will keep the top plane.

“The changes are half of the spoiler, it is removing the hybrid unit, and it is compensating the weight difference, which means a smaller restrictor so effectively the power to weight ratio is negated.”

 
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New points system offered “zero reward” from “mega” WRC battle

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


The Toyota driver has been among the most critical of the new points system and again brought the subject back into question after finishing second behind team-mate Sebastien Ogier.

Evans scooped 19 points from the weekend, picking up 15 for finishing second on Saturday before claiming three from the Super Sunday classification and one from the Power Stage.

His tally matched title rival Thierry Neuville, who finished third, to ensure Evans continues to trail the Hyundai driver by six points in the championship standings. 

Another quirk of the points structure saw Ott Tanak claim 20 points, one less than rally winner Ogier after finishing fourth. Tanak picked up 10 points after ending Saturday fourth but earned six points from finishing second in the Sunday standings, and four points from the Power Stage.

After being involved in a “mega” battle for the win with Neuville and Ogier throughout the rally before a mistake on stage 18, Evans felt his efforts were not sufficiently rewarded.

“Of course, there was a lot of joy from it [the close fight with Neuville] but at the end of it all even though we have had a mega weekend, it feels like there is zero reward for it given the new points structure,” Evans told Autosport when asked about his tense battle for the win.

“Adrien [Fourmaux] spent 15 minutes changing his steering arm and he has got 13 points and we have come away with 19 points and Ott has got 20 points. It is difficult to feel joy and you can clearly see that on the podium, everybody is in the same boat.”

Adrien Fourmaux, Alexandre Coria, M-Sport Ford World Rally Team Ford Puma Rally1

Adrien Fourmaux, Alexandre Coria, M-Sport Ford World Rally Team Ford Puma Rally1

Photo by: M-Sport

The new points system is being monitored by the FIA, but the intention is for the system to see out the season according to the governing body’s road sport director Andrew Wheatley.

“The rules are set year by year and if you want to change the points system in the year you have to have unanimous agreement of every registered competitor and that is incredibly difficult to do,” said Wheatley on the Friday of the event.

“The intention of the points system is to let it run for the year and we are constantly monitoring it to understand what the implications are and what the opportunities are. We have had a couple of ends of the spectrum. I don’t think we have had anybody reporting at the end of a Sunday stage saying that they are just driving round.

“What it has done so far is it has achieved its target [to improve the action on Sundays] however we have both ends of the spectrum and we have to see if we are still achieving the target at the middle or the end of the season.”

In addition to frustrations over the points system, Evans rued a “big error” in taking more hard tyres than his rivals, which he felt contributed to his costly spin in stage 18 that ended his victory hopes.

“I am just so disappointed with my tyre choice this morning it was quite a big error to go so brave,” added Evans.

“The conditions were worse than what we expected, and we knew there would be pollution [on the road] and we didn’t quite expect it to be as bad as it was.

“Of course, the spin happened as a result of the hard tyre on the rear, so it was definitely a mistake to go with that choice today.”

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Ogier takes shock lead as Neuville, Evans crash

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


Ogier started the morning 11.6 seconds adrift of Neuville but similar accidents for both Neuville and Evans have pushed the eight-time world champion into a 9.1s lead over Evans.

Evans and Neuville both reached the end of stage 18 with damaged cars — with the latter, who started the day leading by 4.9s, now dropping to third, 10.2s in arrears.

Hyundai’s Ott Tanak survived a moment in stage 18 to maintain fourth [+1m02.3s] while M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux handed fifth overall to Takamoto Katsuta [+1m57.1s]. Katsuta also leads the Super Sunday classification by 3.9s from Tanak.

Sunday morning began with a blast through the wide and open roads of stage 17 [Trakoscan-Vrbno, 13.15km] with the lead trio all opting for different tyre strategies to add extra intrigue to the victory battle. Rally leader Neuville selected one hard and four softs, while Evans chose three hards and two softs and Ogier opted for two hards and three softs.

Evans’ decision appeared to help the Welshman on the increasingly dirty road as the early runners dragged gravel onto the surface. The Toyota driver managed to take 2.3s out of leader Neuville to chop the deficit down to 2.6s with three stages remaining.

“I’m pretty surprised already, lots of pollution and quite slippery especially at the end of stage — overall quite good,” said Evans.

Neuville wasn’t overly concerned by Evans’ attack and felt confident his tyre decision would come back to him as the loop progressed.

Thierry Neuville, Martijn Wydaeghe, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1

Thierry Neuville, Martijn Wydaeghe, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1

Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images

“We have different tyre choices, this one will be really dirty on the second pass,” said Neuville. “For the next one I think we have better tyres.

“It’s OK, it’s a dirty road in the morning and we lose a bit of time, but we’re going to push hard.”

Ogier struggled to find the feeling behind the wheel of his GR Yaris but was able to match Neuville’s time to remain 11.6s adrift of the leader.

The stage was won by Katsuta, who took an early lead in the Super Sunday classification. The Toyota driver was 1.8s faster than Fourmaux with Evans third fastest. Tanak was fourth quickest despite battling a stage he claimed was “full of gravel”.

But the rally was turned on its head in stage 18 [Zagorska Sela – Kumrovec, 14.24km] as Neuville, Evans and Fourmaux all hit trouble.

Fourmaux was the first to make an error as he clipped an anti-cut device, which damaged his front right. The M-Sport driver pulled off the road to fix the car and eventually reached the stage end after losing more than 16 minutes.

“After a corner I snapped the steering arm, sometimes it bends, sometimes it breaks,” said Fourmaux. “This time it breaks. We need to score some points today, so we need to regroup and look forward to the Power Stage.”

Tanak also had what he called “more than a moment” running off the road, on his way to winning the stage, but he fared much better than lead duo Evans and Neuville.

Evans clipped a bank with the left rear of his GR Yaris, which pitched the car into a spin, costing the Welshman a vital 19.6s.

“It was just a slippery place, hit the rear hard on the left and it just took off and spun the car unfortunately,” said Evans.

Minutes later, rally leader Neuville ran into a bank, this time with the right rear of his i20 N, resulting in damage to the front and rear wing. The Belgian, who dropped 23.3s to third overall, blamed the incident on a late pacenote.

“There was a lot of corners, when I got the pacenote it was far too late,” said Neuville. “We lost 20 seconds to Ogier so it’s a shame because everything was going well.”

Ogier was third fastest in the stage but inherited the lead ahead of a repeat of the morning stages, which will conclude the rally.



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Neuville, Evans tied for WRC Croatia lead «something special»

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Hyundai’s Neuville and Toyota driver Evans incredibly clocked identical overall times to sit tied for the lead on Friday night after 119.74 competitive stage kilometres.

Neuville claimed three of the four morning stages on the way to opening up a 10.1-second lead over Evans until a puncture on stage six cost the Belgian valuable time.

Evans moved into a 1.6s lead before Neuville responded on the final test to match Evans at the top of the leaderboard.

While the top two couldn’t be separated on times, only 6.6s covered the top three following Sebastien Ogier’s stunning victory on stage eight.

The hard-fought battle has arrived while the championship’s future is firmly in the spotlight as discussions continue among the teams and the FIA to resolve next year’s Rally1 technical regulations.

The FIA wishes to remove hybrid power and decrease the performance of the cars through a reduction in aero and the air restrictor, although these proposed changes have been strongly opposed by the teams.

Asked about the battle for the rally victory, Latvala told Autosport: “It is exciting. In the morning it was looking like it was going to be a tough day for us because Thierry was so strong on the first stage, and I thought our chances were not going to be so great.

“But the drivers improved over the day and eventually having exactly the same time with Thierry and Elfyn is something special.”

Thierry Neuville, Martijn Wydaeghe, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1

Thierry Neuville, Martijn Wydaeghe, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1

Photo by: Romain Thuillier / Hyundai Motorsport

Hyundai’s WRC programme manager Christian Loriaux added: “It shows the World Rally Championship is exciting and it is close, and it is worth existing, that is for sure. It [Thierry and Elfyn sharing the lead] is quite amazing.”

Evans is among a group of drivers keen for the current Rally1 regulations to remain in place next year and believes the close battle is proof the technical formula works.

“It is good. We know that the technical formula has worked for many years now and the cars and the battles are always close — like I’ve always said, that side works,” Evans told Autosport.

Reflecting on his own performance across the eight stages, Evans felt he left some time on the table, particularly in the final stage, but ultimately was satisfied with his Friday showing.

“There were quite a few things [we could have done better], but overall, it was still quite a good day,” he said.

“I was disappointed with the last stage as I think there was time left in there.

“I think the third stage I was a bit too careful in a few places, but you have to try and find that balance in those conditions to get to the end and go quickly.”

Although the pacesetter for much of Friday, assisted by a road position advantage, Neuville admitted that he had “to give everything” to recover the lost ground after the puncture, and tame his i20 N.

“I mean it was definitely a good fight out there,” said Neuville. “We had to give everything in every stage.

“We are in the lead equal with Elfyn but we lost important seconds this afternoon with our puncture and I was just generally struggling a bit with the balance of the car.

“It got a bit better toward the end of the day, but the last stage was massive dust, so there was lots of cleaning and there was not much more we could have done.”

The rally continues on Saturday although rain showers are expected to add to the challenge for the crews.

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Costly WRC Safari Rally punctures a “mystery”

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Evans started Saturday sitting in second trailing leader Kalle Rovanpera by 56.9s but ended the morning loop in fifth [+3m34.2s] after picking up punctures in stage eight [Soysambu] and 10 [Sleeping Warrior].

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Evans picked up a left-rear failure in the day’s opening test before losing the right rear in the famous Sleeping Warrior test. The Welshman admitted he was perplexed by the tyre issues and was unable to pinpoint how they had occurred.

“I was driving as well as possible. It is such a long way to go you can’t think about too much and you just have to do the best rhythm and drive to the notes you made on the recce. The two punctures are a mystery, not ideal,” said Evans.

“The first one is a complete mystery, I at least know the area of the second one but I don’t know how and why.

“We have to keep going as you never know what can happen, so we have to continue to drive well.”

Elfyn Evans, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT

Elfyn Evans, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Evans wasn’t the only driver to suffer punctures as team-mate Takamoto Katsuta picked up front- and rear-right failures in stage 10. The Japanese driver ceded 1m24.6s, which dropped him to third behind Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville, having briefly inherited second after Evans’ first puncture.

“It was not clear where the rocks are in the cuts and they are very hidden, so you don’t know where they are,” said Katsuta.

“I hit something and got a puncture but there was nothing on the recce so I was very surprised, but this can happen. It was very unfortunate, but you need luck here.”

At the front, Rovanpera driving the third Toyota, managed to skip through the stages with all his tyres intact, benefitting from what he declared was a “steady” pace in the stages.

“It was a good morning from us and quite a steady pace in the first two ones, and I would say clever driving, and then on Sleeping Warrior we tried to have a good pace, but it was a bit muddy and tough,” said Rovanpera, who opened up a 1m27.9s rally lead over Neuville.

“There was lot of cutting and I was not taking a lot of risk in the cuts, I would say it was quite a steady pace from us and everything worked quite well.

“I felt I was driving quite fast when the conditions were good and then when it wasn’t I still took quite good care of the tyres and the car, and it worked out well.”



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WRC technical overhaul for 2025 “makes no sense”

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


Last month, the world motorsport governing body released a raft of proposals designed to improve top-level rallying that included widespread changes to technical and sporting regulations.

The proposals, which the FIA wishes to ratify in June, include changes to the Rally1 class that will be implemented next year, two years before the end of the agreed homologation cycle. Hybrid power is set to be removed from the cars, which will also undergo a reduction in performance and aerodynamics to bring them closer into line with Rally2 cars.

In addition to this, an upgrade kit, priced at around €5,000, will be made available to Rally2 cars to create a “Rally2 Plus” car capable of competing with the top class. This will form part of a transitional period until new Rally1 regulations – based on the current car but capped at €400,000 – are introduced in 2026, forming the basis of the top class for 2027 onwards.

The technical changes for next year have so far been met negatively by WRC teams while Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville has strongly opposed the call.   

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Speaking to media about the changes for the first time at Safari Rally Kenya, two-time world champion Kalle Rovanpera said the changes to the cars for 2025 made “no sense”.

“For sure, it [the cars] will be less [pleasure to drive] than now. There are some good things about the new ideas, but there is also the car thing [changes] which makes no sense for me, to make a big hassle for two years and use more money to make two classes that will never be fully equal or connected.

“Yes, I understand they [the FIA] want more cars on the same main class on the start list but that is it. They should focus now to make the new rules for 2027 and then maybe hopefully we will see new teams coming.”

Kalle Rovanperä, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT

Kalle Rovanperä, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT

Photo by: Toyota Racing

Asked if stability in the regulations was needed, he added: “Exactly, that [stability] has been the issue. So far there has been no real plan for the future, so no new teams come. If you reduce the costs and make the cars whatever you want, but make it for two years after – but this transition phase I don’t really understand.”

It appears the majority of the Rally1 drivers share the same view. Rovanpera’s Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans also believes the focus should be on 2027. 

“Personally, I think we should stay as we are and focus on doing a proper job for 2027,” he said. “I think there is a big job to do to fix this and I think, ultimately there is a commitment for the next years anyway, we should forget about what is happening in the next two years and make a proper plan for 2027.”

Hyundai’s Ott Tanak suggested that the decision to make changes for next year was “working against” manufacturers.

“It doesn’t matter what the drivers say, it is more about keeping the manufacturers happy,” he said.

“We have only limited manufacturers at the moment and even with the situation of where we are at the moment, we are working against the manufacturers that are sticking to the sport, which is a bit strange behaviour.”  

Watch: Safari Rally Kenya Shakedown highlights



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