Elfyn Evans: “Adapt to whatever comes your way”

What will be the state of the road tomorrow in Sweden, for the second pass through the special stages on the menu for this 2020 edition? Due to a pronounced mild spell, the organizers and the FIA ​​were forced to limit the number of special stages to a loop of four sectors for Friday and Saturday, with the drivers repeating the route.

The first passage this Friday saw Elfyn Evans confirm his good intentions Rally Monte-Carlo (3rd), setting the pace against its rivals, led by Ott Tänak (Hyundai) and his two teammates Toyota Gazoo Racing Kalle Rovanperä and Sébastien Ogier.

Despite the difficulty in preserving the nails on a terrain where the dirt quickly appeared, the Welshman seems to have found the right compromise in terms of the settings of his Yaris WRC. “The feeling in the car was immediately good this morning, comments the ex-pilot M-Sport.

It was quite difficult to know exactly how hard to push on the first stage: we had quite high grip, but it seemed quite aggressive on the tyres. We tried to be fast but also relatively clean and it seemed to work pretty well.

Now we have to try to do more tomorrow. No one knows what the conditions will be like, so we have to adapt to whatever comes our way. I don't think we'll have to change a lot because everything worked really well today, but we'll look at the data and try to find a few more seconds. »

A performance which nevertheless enchants Tommi Makinen, Team Principal of Toyota Gazoo Racing. For the Finn, his drivers achieved a solid stage which could foreshadow an excellent overall result, the quadruple world champion highlighting Rovanperä's performance in particular.

“Elfyn flies, believes Mäkinen. It's an incredible performance from him and he seems really comfortable in our car. We also saw an incredible step from Kalle. He still has a lot to learn about the car, and I'm sure his speed will be even better during the rally. »