Elfyn Shows His Wales Rally GB Class On Super Saturday

By Paul Evans

Elfyn Evans was the star of the gruelling ‘Super Saturday’ leg of Wales Rally GB, showing true FIA World Rally Championship winning pace in his M-Sport Ford Fiesta WRC.

Indeed, he may look back on the 2019 event and see two very small standout moments – a poor opening stage time at Oulton Park and a puncture and suspension damage in Penmachno forest – that ultimately denied him victory.

Evans and co-driver Scott Martin left Llandudno just after 6am this morning and headed towards the classic mid-Wales stages, and jumped from eighth to sixth position on the leaderboard with fastest time on the opening stage through Dyfi forest.

He then set another two fastest stage times in Myherin and Sweet Lamb Hafren forests to close to within 4.6 seconds of fifth-placed Andreas Mikkelsen/Anders Jæger-Amland.

“It’s been a great morning and everything has been working really well,” said Evans. “We’ve not got our eye on any particular position, we’re just taking it stage by stage and enjoying the driving.”

The gap was then down to 1.5 seconds, after Evans charged through a repeat of Myherin, but he found that the opening stage of the afternoon loop was quite different to the morning.

“It’s changed a lot – it’s pretty slippy out there now. It’s difficult to say whether we had a good run, in some places we were a bit careful and in others we were sliding a lot. It’s a difficult balance to find now that the surface is polished.”

Mikkelsen responded with fastest time in his Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC in Sweet Lamb Hafren 2 to widen the gap to 5.5 seconds – helped by the fact that Evans had thought he was in trouble.

“I had a little it of a scare with a really big stone on the line and I was convinced it would have caused a puncture. Otherwise it was quite okay,” he said.

Evans was faster than Mikkelsen in Dyfi 2, with the gap now just 2.8 seconds as crews headed to the final stage of the day, a short 2.4km floodlit stage on Colwyn Bay Promenade. Tonight, after that stage, just 4.5 seconds separates Mikkelsen in fifth and Evans in sixth, as they head into the final day of competition tomorrow.

It’s also been a great Super Saturday for Petter Solberg and his Newtown-based co-driver Phil Mills, as the 2003 world champions lead the WRC2 category in their Volkswagen Polo GTI R5.

Tom Cave/Dale Furniss enjoyed another fantastic morning and by the time they’d reached the regroup in the centre of Newtown they had moved up to 14th overall and top-placed Hyundai i20 R5 crew. Mixing it with the world’s top WRC2 crews, the Aberdyfi driver finished the day just outside the top 10.

The three crews battle for this year’s WRC title are fighting for victory on Wales Rally GB, with series leaders Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Toyota Yaris WRC) ending the day with an 11 second lead ahead of second placed Thierry Neuville/Nicolas Gilsoul (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC), with Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Citroën C3 WRC) third, a further 6.3 seconds behind. Early rally leaders Kris Meeke/Seb Marshall (Toyota Yaris WRC) are fourth.

The final day of Wales Rally on Sunday includes four forest stages in Alwen and Brenig on the Denbigh Moors – the repeat of Brenig (SS22) being the bonus points scoring closing Power Stage. There is also a stage around the Great Orme. The Ceremonial Finish takes place in Llandudno soon after 13.30.