Elfyn Evans hoping to stay on track in Monza as he bids to become Britain's third world rally champion
The 25th anniversary of Colin McRae’s WRC world title came and went a couple of weekends ago. There was a brief flurry of nostalgia, with WRC TV producing a documentary Colin McRae: 25 Years A Champion, and pieces on the BBC and in our paper, among others, dedicated to the late Scot.
Unless you were concentrating very hard, however, you would never have guessed there was another British driver who might be about to repeat McRae’s feat.
Elfyn Evans, a 31 year-old from Dolgellau in north-west Wales, is not a household name. He has nothing like the cut-through that McRae did in the late 1990s and early 2000s when the Scot’s rivalry with Englishman Richard Burns was box office material and the Codemasters ‘Colin McRae Rally’ video games were selling in their millions.
But if Evans finishes in the top two of this week’s season finale, Rally Monza, which begins today on the famous race circuit just north of Milan, he is guaranteed to become the third Briton, after McRae and Burns, to be crowned FIA world rally champion. He may not even need to finish that high depending on how Toyota team mate Sebastien Ogier fares.
“It would be a dream come true,” he says of the prospect. “I’ve been fighting for this for a long time. But this has been such a strange season. I have to stay focused.”
It has indeed been a strange season. Drastically shortened by Covid-19, there have been nine events cancelled in total, including the returning Safari Rally and classics such as Finland, New Zealand and Great Britain.
Only three events have been held since the pandemic took hold, with efforts to incorporate the Ypres Rally in Belgium onto the WRC calendar a few weeks ago abandoned due to rising cases across Europe. Naturally that has taken a lot of the buzz out of the narrative and perhaps helps to explain the lack of hype over the season finale. Mainly, of course, rallying is just no longer as popular as it once was in this country.
None of which is Evans’s fault. The 31 year-old has driven well in the six rounds which have taken place this year, winning in Sweden and Turkey and never finishing lower than fourth. “I’m pleased with how I’ve coped with all the disruptions,” he admits. “It’s been a weird year to be honest. A lot of things changing last minute. Even before Covid, we had no snow in Sweden. And it was my first year at a new team, too.”
Making the switch from M-Sport - with whom Evans had a 12-year association - to Toyota, at the end of last year might have been considered a risk by some. Ogier has, after all, won the last six world titles, extending a run of championships by Frenchmen called Sebastien to 15, what with Sebastien Loeb’s nine straight crowns from 2004-2012.
But Evans, with co-driver Scott Martin beside him, has been the more consistent performer. He carries a 14-point lead over his team mate into the final round, which will all take place within the confines of the Monza circuit apart from the Saturday leg, which is going to be played out on the roads north-east.
Even Ogier admits Evans deserves to be crowned champion if he can stay ahead this weekend. "At the end of the day we have all had the same chance to compete in this mini-championship,” the Frenchman said this week, although he did add, rather meanly, that he would “not put the same value on this title compared to the previous ones” if he was able to snatch it at the death.
Evans is unlikely to take offence at that. For one thing he says he gets on well with Ogier. “He’s been very, very fair,” he says of their relationship. “As have the team. We’ve had equal opportunities with testing, and with the car. Seb is very open with his information.”
For another, the Welshman is a just a very placid character in general. Certainly not in a McRae mould.
The impact of another British world champion after all these years is not to be underestimated, though. What could it do for the sport? “Obviously Colin had a massive following,” Evans notes when asked to compare eras. “I think the video game helped a lot. You know, that put Colin’s name into the limelight and that went hand in hand with his very spectacular driving style. And then of course, there was the rivalry with Richard Burns. It was three key things there that brought a lot of excitement to fans. And then the TV and everything came off the back of that. Rallying was on terrestrial TV back then. I think we’re a long way off that level of publicity unfortunately. It would still be an honour to follow in his footsteps.
“One of my earliest memories as a child is of standing on top of some bank at Rally GB and seeing Colin come past in his blue Impreza. I can’t tell you what year it was but I remember looking down on the car and it was 90 degrees to the road. It was really spectacular.
“It would be amazing to match his achievement. I’m not giving any guarantees but we’ll give it our best shot.”
You can watch Elfyn Evans race in the final round of the WRC at the Monza Rally, 4-6 December, on RedBullTV
