Evans finished second overall in extremely challenging conditions. However, over the course of the weekend he was unable to match the pace of his team-mate Oliver Solberg.
In the end, Evans lost out to Solberg by as much as 51.8 seconds, but he still won the Power Stage and was the top performer on Super Sunday among the Rally1 cars.
Toyota’s weekend was also very successful, as the team secured a one-two-three finish at Monte right at the start of the season.
“This is a fantastic result for the team, and huge congratulations to Oliver and Elliott for a great performance,” Evans said.
“Of course it would have been nice to fight for the win, but quite simply we didn’t have enough to give this weekend to be able to respond to their pace,” Evans admitted honestly.
Among others, Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala stated after the rally that this year’s edition of the Rally Monte Carlo was one of the most challenging in years. Evans was fully in agreement.
“This was definitely the most difficult Monte Carlo Rally of my career. There have been challenging events before, but this time the combined effect of everything made the weekend exceptionally tough,” Evans said.
Although Evans did not quite reach the fight for victory in the way he had hoped this time, the Welshman still did not feel particularly disappointed.
“In the end, I’m reasonably satisfied that we picked up a good haul of points. Of course we wanted to fight more for the win – that is always the aim. In that sense, we fell short. But in a rally like this, I think you still have to be somewhat satisfied with this, Evans summed up.
