Evans suffers Saudi setback in WRC title race

16 hours ago 20

Elfyn Evans hopes of a first World Rally Championship (WRC) title suffered a major setback on Friday's stage 11 at the season-ending Rally Saudi Arabia.

The Welsh driver was forced to change a wheel after puncturing and has dropped to 10th overall - three places and more than two and a half minutes behind championship rival Sebastien Ogier.

Evans took a three-point lead into the last round of the 14-rally series, but on current positions would be two points behind his Toyota team-mate before Saturday's final-day bonuses.

The 36-year-old Britain finished the stage two minutes and 16 seconds behind winner Ott Tanak, despite clawing back a few seconds with a spirited drive in the latter stages of the morning's final run.

"We had a puncture alarm right at the beginning," said Evans.

"It was going down slowly but it was so far to go that we had to take the decision to change it when we could. Not ideal."

Eight-time champion Ogier received the message that Evans had a puncture before he started the stage himself and confessed: "I was very cautious, it's just pure lottery in there. Not so much fun."

The 41-year-old Frenchman was 26 second behind winner Tanak and also lost 12.2 seconds to a third Toyota title contender, Kalle Rovanpera, who lies eighth after 11 of 17 stages.

The Finn needs an unlikely 24-point turnaround to clinch his third world title, but is now less than 20 seconds behind Ogier and should he catch him that would marginally improve Evans championship position.

The Welshman has previously been runner-up in 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024 and is bidding to become only the third Briton to win the WRC title.

There are three further stages on Friday before three final runs on Saturday which will provide two sets of up to five bonus points that currently look set to decide the 2025 champion.

1. Adrien Fourmaux (France), Hyundai, 2 hours 0 minutes 46.1 seconds

2. Martins Sesks (Latvia), Ford, +2.9secs

3. Sami Pajari (Finland), Toyota, +4.5secs

4. Ott Tanak (Estonia), Hyundai, +9.2secs

5. Thierry Neuville (Belgium), Hyundai, +43.1secs

6. Takamoto Katsuta (Japan), Toyota, +58.3secs

7. Sebastien Ogier (France), Toyota, +1min 32.1secs

8. Kalle Rovanpera (Finland), Toyota, +1min 52.0secs

9. Gregoire Munster (Luxembourg), Ford, +3min 55.6secs

10. Elfyn Evans (Great Britain), Toyota, +4min 08.4secs

Selected

11. Josh McErlean (Ireland), Ford, +5min 08.5secs