The Toyota driver kicked off his campaign by finishing second in Monte Carlo, where only his teammate Sebastien Ogier – who is contesting only part of the season – managed to beat him.
In Sweden, Evans started the rally as the road opener, but this time, it was not a disadvantage. The Welshman secured victory in the winter rally, collecting the maximum 35 points.
“It has been a good start to the year for us. We seem to have adapted pretty quickly to the new tyre. Things have gone well in both events,” Evans said.
His teammate Kalle Rovanperä has struggled with Hankook’s new tyres and the updated Rally1 car, but Evans has not faced similar difficulties.
“Obviously we were lucky after a strong event in Monte to have good conditions or at least conditions that were quite favourable to be early on the road in Sweden. That definitely helped us then towards securing another strong result.”
“I think it’s quite rare normally to put two strong results like this together so we could be happy with the first two. But of course now the focus changes to gravel where we have to do all the learning again with the new tyre,” Evans explained.
Evans has already built a solid lead in the championship standings over his nearest rival. Among the full-season drivers, Rovanperä is his closest challenger, but the gap has already grown to 30 points.
Check out the full WRC standings here!
The next round takes place next week in Kenya, where the Safari Rally will see Evans under pressure from his competitors, who will try to prevent him from extending his championship lead any further.
“With a strong start of the year we’ve had, we naturally have a bit of a lead in the championship. But of course it’s such early days, it doesn’t really mean much at all at this stage,” Evans admitted.
“Especially with the new points structure, there’s so many points available now for a strong weekend and especially on Sunday. The points don’t really mean so much at the moment. We just have to go through the season bagging as many as we can from each rally.”
Safari Rally Kenya takes place on 20–23 March.
