Evans finished runner-up for the fifth time, as once again his team-mate Sébastien Ogier hauled himself level and then ahead by a margin of six points. At Toyota, the situation has now been the same on three occasions, but this time Ogier managed to beat Evans despite skipping three rallies.
Evans made an excellent start to last season and built up a healthy points lead, which later became a burden during the summer gravel rallies. Ogier was only meant to contest selected events, but when a title chance opened up, the French star took full advantage of it.
“I think it’s fair to say that the start of last year was very good for us. Even the end of the championship was was quite strong, although Seb was was very difficult to beat. But I think the most damaging part was obviously the mid-season on the dry gravel rallies. There’s a few factors to that,” Evans explains.
“We’ve seen in so many of the dry gravel rallies how much of an effect running first on the road has. It’s nothing new in the championship. But maybe there’s always ways to do that better. And I think those dry gravel rallies are probably giving one of the areas that I have the most scope to improve. So definitely, that’s something we’re targeting for better results in 26.”
Evans is therefore very aware of what went wrong last year. Perhaps this season it will finally be the Welshman’s turn to celebrate. At the very least, a certain increase in aggression from Evans would not go amiss.
“I think in the championship you have to take whatever point you can at whatever moment you can in the championship. You never know what’s going to happen on the next round, whether you have an accident, a mechanical, anything can happen. A few punctures, anything can happen at any moment in the season. So you have to take the maximum,” Evans stresses.
“But in a similar way to last year, we have a calendar that has a string of gravel events. Last year it was in the middle of the championship. Now it’s at the end. So I think it’s going to leave things very open, but definitely leading the championship in the second half of the year won’t be an easy place to be, but that’s just something someone’s going to have to deal with when they get there.”
