Evans wins Rally de Portugal

Elfyn Evans secures his fourth WRC victory in Portugal and is now only two points behind Ogier in the championship.

23. May 2021
Evans wins Rally de Portugal
Copyright: Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT

Evans grabbed first place from Ott Tänak when the Estonian had to park his Hyundai with a broken suspension on Saturday afternoon. On Saturday night, the Welshman was 10.7 seconds ahead of Dani Sordo before winning Sunday by a total of 28.3 seconds from the Spanish Hyundai driver.

Sebastien Ogier secured third place, 1:23 minutes behind his brand colleague Evans, and thus continued to lead the Drivers’ Championship. Toyota also leads the manufacturers’ standings with 183 points, ahead of Hyundai with 146 points.

“We might not have been the fastest, quickest crew this weekend, but we still had really good pace, stayed out of trouble and did enough to keep Dani behind us today,” said a jubilant Evans. “This comes at a really good time for our championship challenge as we head towards some tough gravel rallies.”

Takamoto Katsuta scored a career-best fourth-place finish in a third Yaris. The Japanese swapped places with Ogier during Saturday’s grueling stage in the Cabreira Mountains.

The M-Sport Ford duo of Gus Greensmith and Adrien Fourmaux finished fifth and sixth in their Fiestas. Both lost time with throttle problems, Fourmaux lost even more time due to a spin on the first day, with fifth place matching Greensmith’s best WRC performance.