Rough rallies hold no fears for Evans

Podium debutant Elfyn Evans admits his current approach to rallies is suited to rough road events.

Third at last weekend’s gruelling XION Rally Argentina was the Welshman’s first top three WRC finish and came six weeks after he matched his previous-best with fourth in Mexico – both rallies with an extraordinarily high rate of attrition.

Evans is in only his second season at the top level and believes that is helping him succeed on more demanding events.

“At this stage of my career I’m still learning, so the pressure to push to the maximum all the time isn’t always there. Maybe that helps, with some careful planning on the rallies that are always tough. It’s important to get experience on them,” he told wrc.com

“Going back to the days when I drove a R2 car we were always good in these kind of environments, so that’s the plan when we come to rallies where there’s a bit of mechanical understanding required.”

However, Evans said his pace showed a marked increase from 2014 when he finished seventh on his South American debut.

“We came here with the approach of being on the cautious side. The aim was to finish but obviously we wanted to be quicker than we were last year. That would have been a disaster if we were at that speed again.

“We kept out of trouble, we had a strong car all weekend and that rewarded us with a podium, so it feels pretty good,” he said.

His only alarm came in the final stage when a problem at the rear of his Ford Fiesta RS caused concerns.

“We had something rubbing at the back so we backed right off because we saw that Thierry Neuville was out and we knew we had a massive gap. It was better to be safe than sorry but I was a little bit nervous to say the least!” he added.