Evans, who was in second place in the competition, lost his position on the Päijälä special stage when his Toyota suffered a technical failure. He was able to limp through the Päijälä and the subsequent Ouninpohja stages, but in total, he lost six minutes.
This was a significant setback for Evans in the championship battle, as he could have gained more valuable points on Saturday evening compared to Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville, who leads the WRC standings. However, the situation reversed: Neuville moved up to third place in the competition, while Toyota’s Welsh driver dropped to eighth.
Evans recounted his issue upon arriving at the service break in Jyväskylä.
“I was coming into a junction and then went back to throttle. It was clear we lost drive to one of the wheels, and obviously, it spun us around immediately.”
According to Evans, the driveshaft of the Toyota broke.
“Then from there on, it’s just a case of nursing the car back,” Evans stated.
Evans will likely be able to improve his position in the afternoon loop, but valuable points are still being lost.
“It is what it is. These things happen. We still have to focus this afternoon because there are points to catch back against the WRC2 guys. So, we need to have a good and clean afternoon and try to get some points from there at least.”
Due to Evans’ troubles, Toyota lost its triple lead in Rally Finland. Kalle Rovanperä still leads with a 21.9-second gap over Sebastien Ogier.
Rovanperä’s lead is such that Ogier does not intend to pressure the Finn in the afternoon loop.
“Kalle won all the stages, so he was clearly doing the better job this morning. And it’s a big gap. We’re gonna try to be better this afternoon, focusing on ourselves. But Kalle is already far away,” Ogier summarized.
