World rally championship leader Elfyn Evans can take a significant step towards a first title should he win for the third straight year in Japan this weekend.
The Welshman could even clinch the crown in Japan, the penultimate round of the season, on Sunday if he beats his Toyota teammates and serial title winners Kalle Rovanperä and Sébastien Ogier by 23 points — though that is a tall order.
Only two British drivers have ever been world champions since the first championship in 1977 — Scotland’s Colin McRae in 1995 and Englishman Richard Burns in 2001.
Evans, 36, has been runner-up four times in the last five years and leads the overall standings by 13 points going into the four-day asphalt event in the mountains near Toyota City.
Finland’s Rovanperä, a double world champion, and Frenchman Ogier, with eight titles, have won four of the last five championships between them.
Little margin for error
“It’s not an easy rally with very demanding and twisty stages, and in the last few years we’ve seen some quite difficult conditions at times,” said Evans.
“Even when it’s dry, there’s very little margin for error, and it’s easy to make a small but costly mistake.”
Evans made a cautious start to the event, after going fastest in the shakedown, with the sixth-best time in Thursday’s curtain-raising 2.75km stage in Kuragaike Park.
Rovanperä, who is leaving rallying at the end of the season to try his hand at circuit racing and possibly Formula One, topped the timesheets with Ogier fourth.
“There was a bit of rain overnight, so conditions were tricky in the shakedown this morning, but the feeling with the car was all OK,” said Evans.
“In the first stage we maybe didn’t have the cleanest run; with the stage drying out you would expect the grip to be better, but there were still some tricky places. We have to wait and see what the weather does over the rest of the rally.”
The rally proper starts with six stages on Friday, seven on Saturday and a final six on Sunday.
The final round of the season is in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, from November 25-29.
Reuters
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