You won’t often hear a World Rally Championship driver refer to luck, but the series leader knew the rallying gods were smiling on him in Finland.
First there was the heavy rainfall on Friday afternoon, which was more favorable to Evans than others as he climbed from fifth to second.
Then, crucially, there was the rollover.
Two corners from the end of Saturday morning’s final stage, Elfyn Evans ran ever so slightly wide, hooked a ditch on the outside and his Toyota rolled. Ironically, the main time loss occurred when he got stuck in the ditch after restarting the car and needed spectator help to get going again.
The 1m50s time loss dropped the Welshman from second to fifth, but team-mate Sébastien Ogier’s crash from the lead – and then Evans overhauling Adrien Fourmaux – allowed him to climb back onto the podium and actually extend his championship lead to 30 points, despite Saturday’s drama.
“I have to consider myself a very lucky boy, I think,” Evans told DirtFish. “You know, that’s the reality. You don’t get away with going over three times like that and still have four wheels on and no cage damage very often.
“It was a place where there was zero margin for error. I knew that and I still made the mistake there. So of course I’m kicking myself for that because it pulled me out of contention for the win.