Elfyn Evans (above) sealed a dominant WRC Rally Finland victory on Sunday afternoon to keep alive his chances of fighting for this year’s FIA World Rally Championship title.
A rally-ending crash and roll for his Toyota gazoo Racing teammate, reigning WRC champ and 2023 points leader Kalle Rovanpera, had propelled Evans’ GR Yaris Rally1 into the lead on Friday afternoon. The Welshman then reeled off seven back-to-back stage wins on Saturday to leave his closest challenger, Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville, trailing in his wake.
He extended the gap further on Sunday’s short final leg to win by 39.1s. With 25 points for the win and an additional five points for setting fastest time in the rally-closing Wolf Power Stage, Evans slashed Rovanpera’s championship advantage from 55 points to 25, with four rounds remaining and a maximum 120 up for grabs.
Evans’ Toyota Gazoo Racing team is based near the host city of Jyvaskyla, and victory extended its WRC manufacturers’ championship lead over Hyundai Motorsport to 67 points.
“It’s been a pretty good weekend,” said Evans, who also won on the high-speed gravel stages of Rally Finland in 2021. “Of course, we’re sorry for the loss of Kalle at the start of the rally, but after that it’s been really fantastic to drive this car — it’s such a joy to be behind the wheel on these roads and we’re really happy with this one. In terms of the championship, it’s also not bad that we’ve closed the gap.”
Changeable conditions provided furious action on the fastest roads on the WRC calendar, with early challengers Ott Tanak and Esapekka Lappi both joining Rovanpera on Friday’s list of retirements. Engine failure sidelined Tanak’s M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1, while Lappi emerged unscathed after crashing his Hyundai i20 N Rally 1 into a tree.
Neuville enjoyed one of his strongest performances on Finland’s flat-out and undulating forest roads, but ultimately had no answer to Evans’ rapid pace. Remaining third in the championship after round nine, the Belgian finished with a hefty 57.6s margin over the third-placed Toyota of Takamoto Katsuta behind.
Katsuta dueled relentlessly with Hyundai driver Teemu Suninen. The latter, starting only his second event in an i20 N Rally1, rolled the dice and bravely opted to save weight by not carrying a spare wheel through Sunday’s four-stage finale. But that still wasn’t enough to relegate the Japanese Yaris driver, who ended 4.3s clear to celebrate his fourth career WRC podium.
Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala made a popular return to top-level competition after more than three years away. The 38-year-old Finna was never really in the thick of the podium battle as he used the one-off chance to familiarize himself with the hybrid Rally1 cars first introduced in 2022, but consistency rewarded him with fifth, 2m28.4s behind Suninen.
The high attrition among the Rally1 cars enabled Oliver Solberg, driving a Skoda Fabia RS Rally2, to claim sixth overall, but the Swede wasn’t registered for WRC2 points. That left Sami Pajari to take the class spoils in WRC2, the second tier of international rallying, the 20-year-old Finn finishing 30.1s behind the flying Solberg in seventh overall.
Prior to Rally Finland, Pajari and co-driver Enni Malkonen had twice finished on the WRC2 podium in their Toksport-prepared Skoda Fabia RS, but the stars aligned to deliver their first win in the category on home gravel.
Pajari fought back from a Friday afternoon puncture to reclaim the lead on Saturday when fellow Finn Jari Huttunen retired his similar car with technical issues.
A sizeable overnight advantage meant 2021 FIA Junior World Rally champion Pajari could afford to cruise through Sunday’s final leg and he clinched the victory by 33.8s.
Second in the class went to Adrien Fourmaux, driving a Ford Fiesta MkII for M-Sport Ford. The Frenchman grabbed a handful of stage wins in a field filled with quick local drivers to head third-placed Nikolay Gryazin by 34s at the finish.
After the super-fast and super-smooth stages of Finland, the action heads to some of the WRC’s roughest gravel with Acropolis Rally Greece, Sept. 7-10. Can Elfyn Evans continue his surge on the Lamia-based event, or will Kalle Rovanpera fight back on an event he won in 2021?
WRC Rally Finland, final positions after Day Three, SS22
1 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +2h33m11.3s
2 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +39.1s
3 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnson (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +1m36.7s
4 Teemu Suninen/Mikko Markkula (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1m41.0s
5 Jari-Matti Latvala/Juho Hanninen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +4m09.4s
6 Oliver Solberg/Wlliott Edmondson (Skoda Fabia RS – WRC2/non-points) +9m33.6s
7 Sami Pajari/Enni Malkonen (Skoda Fabia RS – WRC2 winner) +10m03.7s
8 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Ford Fiesta MkII – WRC2) +10m37.5s
9 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Skoda Fabia RS – WRC2) +11m11.5s
10 Andreas Mikkelsen/Torstein Eriksen (Sloda Fabia RS – WRC2) +11m35.2s
WRC Drivers’ Championship after 9 rounds
1 Rovanpera 170 points
2 Evans 145
3 Neuville 134
4 Tanak 104
5 Ogier 97
WRC Manufacturers’ Championship after 9 rounds
1 Toyota Gazoo Racing 378 points
2 Hyundai Motorsport 311
3 M-Sport Ford 205
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