Elfyn Evans reveals what helped him to leave his crash in Portugal behind as he headed to Rally Italia Sardegna two weeks later saying that he grabs every opportunity to spend more time inside the Yaris.
The Welshman scored zero points in Portugal last month and was not able to restart under the regulations of Rally2 as his car was heavily damage following his crash in Stage 7 where he went off the road and ended up in a ditch. After the end of the fifth WRC round, Toyota called him and asked him if he wanted to spend a half day testing the Yaris in Finland with Evans accepting this invitation. Toyota and Hyundai had already completed their pre-event tests for Portugal and Sardinia before the start of the fifth round whereas M-Sport had the chance to schedule a test for both events due to the fact that the team has only two Rally1 drivers, therefore they have more test days in comparison with its rivals.
Evans finished in fourth place overall in Sardinia, but he faced many problems during the last weekend. First of all, he suffered from a front right puncture on the final sector of Stage 7, but the most serious issue came in Stage 10 where he dropped more than two minutes due to the fact that his Yaris carried a radiator damage after his pass through a water splash. Last but not least, he completed Stage 13 in EV mode, but he managed to keep his fourth place at the Mediterranean island as Rally2 drivers followed him on the overall classification.
"When you get the offer, of course, it’s a no-brainer", Evans said.
"I was happy and grateful to the team to give me that opportunity.
"It was good to do some mileage, but of course the road in Finland is not the road in Sardinia.
"I think it wasn’t really a case of trying to prepare in terms of car or setup or anything like that, it was just a case of it: there was a car running for half a day and there was a driver needed.
"So I think I took the opportunity to drive and I found a pretty OK feeling there straightaway.
"I wasn’t particularly worried about getting back in the car, but, again, when the opportunity’s there you never know.
"Like I said, I took it and everything was fine".
Source: DirtFish.com
Photo Credits: Toyota
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