That, however, was expected. Evans had the role of road sweeper on both the gravel rallies of Portugal in May and last weekend’s Rally Sardinia. From such a disadvantageous starting position, the Welshman couldn’t produce heroics, allowing his teammates Sébastien Ogier and Kalle Rovanperä to significantly close the gap in the championship standings.
Hyundai’s Ott Tänak has also managed to claw back a substantial number of points on Evans during these two demanding gravel events. The title fight is now shaping up to involve at least four drivers – possibly five, if reigning champion Thierry Neuville can finally get his season on track.
The biggest question is whether Ogier intends to seriously pursue a ninth world title. The French star has insisted that he’s sticking to the plan and will head into summer break after Rally Greece. Even if Ogier skips the WRC rounds in Estonia and Finland, he could still re-enter the fight for the championship later in the season if he starts from a favourable road position.
For Evans, all the speculation is irrelevant. The calm and collected Welshman is focused solely on his own performance.
“No difference to me. As if to say, at the end of the day, I think this question comes up every year after this sort of time when he’s won a few of these dry gravel rallies. It’s just a question of not for me,” Evans replied sharply.
“This is the world championship. You have to beat anyone who comes on that time.”
More difficulties could be in store for Evans at the next event, Rally Greece, held at the end of June. In both Portugal and Sardinia, he had no chance of matching the frontrunners, and that situation isn’t expected to improve in the next two weeks.
“We knew really coming into these seven gravel rallies at that point, the gap wasn’t realistically going to be very easy to maintain unless others had problems. So I’m at ease with the fact that it’s coming down,” Evans admitted.
“We have to keep fighting. We have to try and be a bit better in these dry gravel rallies. But naturally, it’s very easy to not get to the end of them and not get any points. So it’s a bit of a balancing act, obviously.”
Despite the challenges, Evans saw some signs of progress in Sardinia.
“I think maybe the most positive is that we did make clear progress this time from the start to the end of the weekend in terms of the feeling and especially for a second pass condition, because that was something that was really bad in Portugal.”
“So at least there’s some positives to take. And of course, we have a test now this week. So it just leaves us in a bit of a more positive frame of mind.”
