Elfyn Evans is looking to break his winless streak in the 2024 World Rally Championship season at Rally Chile.
The Brit comes into the event sitting in fourth in the drivers’ standings, having secured four podiums across the season and finished in the top five in all but three rallies so far.
However, Evans is yet to win a rally in 2024, having suffered damaging punctures in Kenya, Portugal and Sardinia that left him down the order.
Evans suffered a driveshaft failure at Stage 12 of Rally Finland before crashing out later in the event. Last time out at Acropolis Rally Greece, he and his Toyota teammates Sebastien Ogier and Takamoto Katsuta had a miserable weekend, with several issues plaguing them and rivals Hyundai scoring a one-two-three finish.
After two disappointing rallies in a row, Evans is looking to turn it around and grab his first WRC win in Chile, and the 35-year-old put himself in the best possible position on Friday.
Hyundai could not objectively prove the notional times were unfair after SS1 of Rally Chile
Hyundai’s Ott Tanak had finished the first six stages in Chile just 0.4 seconds ahead of Evans. The Estonian has won the previous two events in the nation and is looking to repeat that success in 2024.
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Stage One on Friday was cancelled on spectator safety grounds, with Thierry Neuville, Tanak and Ogier only setting a time. As a result, notional times were awarded to the rest of the Rally1 drivers based on the slowest time of the opening stage; that coming from Neuville.
However, this was subject to revision after the second pass of the test at Stage Four. After this was run, the clerk of the course received a request to review the times given after Stage One, and Evans, Adrien Fourmaux and Sami Pajari were awarded new times.
This subsequently put Evans two seconds faster than Tanak instead of 1.4 seconds slower, giving the Brit the lead after Friday by a three-second margin.
Later that evening, Hyundai protested again the decision to review the times and stated, as per the stewards’ report, that: “In their opinion, the ideal principle for allocating notional times should be based on the fastest stage time achieved by the crew to complete SS1 (Ogier) rather than the slowest time achieved by the crew to complete SS1 (Neuville).”
Ultimately, the stewards deemed that the method used by the clerk of the course to determine the times of SS1 was ‘fair and reasonable’ and that “the protester has therefore failed to establish that the notional times allocated by the clerk of the course to the affected cars by CoC Notification No. 2 was unfair in an objective way.”
The stewards concluded: “Accordingly, the notional times allocated to the cars remain as set out in CoC Notification No. 2,” confirming Evans’ lead will remain heading into Saturday.
Thierry Neuville can win the WRC title at Rally Chile
Following Toyota’s disaster in Greece, the Japanese manufacturer’s chances of winning either WRC title look slim.
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Team principal Jari-Matti Latvala even urged his drivers to forget about the title and instead focus on performing well in the final three rounds.
Neuville leads the drivers’ standings heading into Chile by 34 points over his teammate Tanak, who jumped ahead of Ogier into second after finishing third in Greece, with the former winning the event.
Neuville is searching for his maiden WRC title and, while it is a very slim possibility, the Belgian could claim the championship this weekend in Chile.