Evans "gutted" to miss out on first-ever WRC win

Evans took advantage of being the only main class driver to run on DMACK tyres and an advantageous running position to dominate Friday by winning six stages in a row, and lead by around a minute.

However, he lost most of his lead just as quickly on Saturday due to a puncture and losing the rear diffuser on his M-Sport Ford.

He then struggled with faulty brakes in the first of three Sunday stages and was over eight seconds slower than Thierry Neuville in the subsequent test, only keeping 0.6s of a lead before the Power Stage.

Neuville ended up winning that and scoring victory by a mere 0.7s, leaving Evans in second.

"I’m gutted to lose by such a fine margin after so many issues," Evans said.

"It’s difficult to take now after holding such a big lead, but part of it is my own doing and I need to come back stronger to win in the future."

Evans was faster than Neuville in the early splits of the Power Stage despite a recurrent brake problem, as the Welshman explained.

However, he ended up hitting a bridge, which inflicted just enough of a time loss.

"The stage didn't start so well actually because with the brakes cooling again, we had the pedal back on the floor, but luckily they came back pretty quickly, I would say within the first kilometre," recalled Evans.

"It was quite lucky because had we carried on the same, for sure, we wouldn't have been able to pull the time back as we did.

"So the first part of the stage felt really, really good. I had grip on the car. I was driving quite aggressively to be honest, I wasn’t going to leave much behind to try to win but I found towards the end that I was losing grip at the rear of the car.

"I felt I had to be very, very patient. Before we hit the bridge we were already losing quite a bit of time. I wasn’t quite patient enough coming into the bridge. I just hand-braked and continued to slide, basically.

"The impact wasn’t massive on the bridge but still a reasonable fault. We knew the car wasn’t so bad afterwards, so we continued to push. Our last split was quite similar to Thierry’s.

"But unfortunately the damage was done in the narrow parts, the twisty sections of the stage, we lost the time, so yes, it’s a long story.

"I could do a list as long as my arm of excuses and problems and all the rest of it, but fair play to Thierry, he did a very good job."