Evans faces ’tough’ battle with Latvala

Elfyn Evans admits he has a tough challenge on his hands to hold off a hard-charging Jari-Matti Latvala and claim his maiden WRC victory at Tour de Corse - Rallye de France.

Fastest time through Saturday’s opening stage enabled Volkswagen’s Latvala to climb to second and close the gap on Evans from 22.9sec overnight to 1.7sec with four stages to go.

"Can I hold the VWs off? I don’t know," said the M-Sport driver. "When you look back at the tarmac rallies, especially in Germany, they had a big advantage over everybody else. It looks like the roads will be cleaner this afternoon. Let’s wait and see. We’ll do the best we can but it will be tough."

Evans was seventh fastest through the 36.43km test from Francardo to Sermano, having snatched the lead in the same rain-soaked stage yesterday afternoon.

"There was a section in there where we lost a big chunk to Jari-Matti. Okay, he’s found something in there and has driven very well because the conditions were very, very difficult. We just have to keep going and see what we can do," he said.