Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Elfyn Evans has won 13 WRC rallies starting with Wales Rally GB in 2017
- Published8 minutes ago
Few leading sports stars have been so tantalisingly close to crowning glory for so long without achieving ultimate success as rally driver Elfyn Evans.
The 37-year-old from Dolgellau in north-west Wales has been runner-up in the World Rally Championship (WRC) five times in the past six years.
But that could all be about to change.
With this year's WRC calendar truncated by the removal of the planned Saudi Arabia finale, Evans takes a 17-point lead into the now season-ending Rally Italia Sardegna from 1-4 October.
If Evans can maintain his advantage over team-mates Sami Pajari and Oliver Solberg it will be a crowning moment for the Welshman, who would become only the third Briton to win the WRC title - joining Colin McRae and Richard Burns.
As he prepares to grasp history in Sardinia, BBC Sport looks back at the five times Evans fell just short of his dream.
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2020
Image source, BBC/Getty ImagesEvans does have a world title - winning the WRC Junior Championship in 2012 which earned him a full-time seat in M-Sport's Ford Fiesta.
However, it was a move to Toyota Gazoo Racing in 2020 that put his senior career into overdrive.
Only huge last-event misfortune cost him instant success in a season cut from 13 races to seven by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Elfyn Evans finished 29th in the final WRC round at Monza having placed no lower than fourth in 2020's other rallies
After placing third at Monte Carlo in his first Yaris outing, Evans and co-driver Scott Martin excelled at a weather-shortened second round to win Rally Sweden.
It put the Welshman top of the WRC driver's championship for the first time, and although record-breaking Sebastien Ogier would temporarily reclaim the lead, a second victory in Turkey saw Evans take at 14-point advantage over the Frenchman into the final event.
With 10 of the 16 stages complete, the less experienced of the two drivers remained on course for a maiden championship success.
But Evans' dream ended in devastating fashion when he crashed down a bank after being caught out by treacherous snow-covered mountain roads.
Ogier claimed a seventh world title by just eight points to leave his team-mate "gutted".
"When I braked on that, it was just like glass and there was no chance of us slowing down at all. It completely caught me by surprise," said Evans after the race, later admitting "it was a massive disappointment", which made him "more determined" for the year ahead.
2021
Image source, BBC/Getty ImagesEvans took that determination and experience into the new year and soon grabbed the lead in the season-opening Rallye Monte Carlo.
However, local favourite Ogier went on to win in Monaco, and then three more of the first six rounds to take a commanding grip of the 2021 championship.
By mid-August - with four rounds remaining and a deficit of 38 points - Evans conceded: "The gap is quite a big one now. We've got a real uphill struggle if we want to try and win the championship."
The Welsh driver was not about to give up though. A second rally win of the season in Finland. and second place in the penultimate round at Rally Catalunya, once again forced the title race into a final-event decider at Monza.
With a potentially bridgeable gap of 17 points, the two Toyota rally crews swapped the lead throughout - but Ogier and co-driver Julien Ingrassia eventually came out on top to claim both the rally and the title.
"It's been a pretty OK year," a typically level-headed Evans reflected at the end of the race.
"Of course, I can't help but feel a little disappointed right now, you always look to the places you could've done better."
2023
Image source, BBC/Getty ImagesThe following year could certainly have been much better - as Evans struggled with the newly introduced hybrid cars.
Going off the road in the opening round and forced to retire from three further rallies, Evans finished 2022 in fourth place, more than 120 points behind first-time champion Kalle Rovanpera.
"2022 fell below our expectations," a defiant Evans told the BBC before the 2023 campaign.
"We're coming into the new season looking for improvements - and we're hoping we can challenge for the title."
Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Eflyn Evans had three third-place finishes and a second to go with three rally wins in 2023
And challenge he did - winning round four in Croatia to take a share of the championship lead, tied with Ogier and one point ahead of Rovanperra.
However, a crash at Rally Portugal set his title bid back as he was forced to retire in round five and - despite a victory in Finland - Evans had to concede the title with one round to go.
A crash and a disappointing finish at the Central European Rally may have handed back-to-back titles to Finnish team-mate Rovanpera, but the Welshman was to end the season on a high.
Victory at Rally Japan was his third of the campaign - the best return in any season to date for Evans who declared "it feels nice after last year".
2024
Image source, BBC/Getty ImagesWith Rovanpera following Ogier's lead for 2024 in deciding not to contest a full calendar, surely this would be the year their Toyota team-mate would finally get to stand atop the WRC podium?
Sadly for Evans, the opening paragraph of the BBC report for the season's first race set the tone.
'Elfyn Evans faded to finish a disappointing third behind winner Thierry Neuville at Rallye Monte Carlo.'
As it turned out it was second place in the driver's championship come December, but it was another disappointing season for the Welsh driver, with Neuville instead becoming a first-time world champion after Evans' years of waiting.
And Evans, of course, was runner-up - though only just.
Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Elfyn Evans' Rally Japan victory was his only win in 2024
As Neuville lined up in Nagoya needing just six points - he collected 17 - to end his own streak of five championship runners-up spots, the Welshman began Rally Japan in third place.
For the second year in a row, Evans saved his best for last and a back-to-back Japanese victory brought a double silver lining.
Not only did it see him overhaul Ott Tanak to claim runners-up spot for a fourth time, it also saw Toyota snatch the manufacturer's championship.
However, the big personal prize remained as elusive as ever.
"We're sorry we couldn't deliver [the drivers'] championship," Evans said, "but we'll try again next year."
2025
Image source, BBC/Getty ImagesA revamp of the points system for 2025 was welcomed by Evans; it also brought his tightest title race yet.
After second place to Ogier in the Monte Carlo curtain-raiser, the re-energised Welshman won in Sweden and Kenya - rallies the Frenchman sat out.
With a 36-point advantage, Evans had opened up the largest championship lead ever recorded after three rounds of a WRC campaign.
But he would not win again that season and though he never finished lower than sixth, Ogier gradually whittled away at his lead until it came down to just three points with one round to go.
That race was a brand new entry to the calendar, and there was uncertainty over what lay ahead at Rally Saudi Arabia.
The terrain proved brutal for all the drivers. Tyre problems galore saw the leaderboard shifting like the sand. It ended with Ogier in third and Evans in sixth.
The points-swing was seven. The Frenchman had won a record-equalling ninth WRC title by four points, and Evans had fallen just short for the fifth time in six years.
"We've done what we can, that's it," was his reaction.
"We're competitors at the end of the day, we always want better, we always want more."
2026
Image source, BBC/Getty ImagesBut there is only one more thing to do. Finally shake-off the tag of nearly-man.
He grabbed the 2026 championship lead with victory in February's Rally Sweden and has refused to let it go.
Once again his rivals are Toyota team-mates. This time it is Pajari, who won three rallies in a row, before Solberg triumphed in Rally Chile at the start of September to put himself back in the title reckoning.
Evans will require at most 19 points to guarantee him the title, but has not finished higher than third in the past five rallies since winning in Japan.
He will also have to cope with being first on the road in Sardinia - sweeping the gravel which has frequently caused him trouble in the past.
"I think especially with opening the road, normally in Sardinia it's a significant disadvantage to run first," concedes Evans who says he will "ignore the championship situation".
"You can't really afford to [think about the lead]. I have plenty of experience of what not to do," he muses.
"But you know how it turns out. I think it's far less certain than what it appears on paper."
True, but maybe by Sunday, the paper in the history books will show Evans finally proved he is not just another runner-up.
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