Can Evans end long wait for WRC title?

Elfyn Evans was World Rally Championship runner-up in 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024

Elfyn Evans is a four-time World Rally Championship (WRC) runner-up.

Up until this point it has been a story of near-misses and 'what ifs' for the 36-year-old - but what if this is the year?

Evans is currently top of the WRC drivers' championship with two races to go and it could be his best chance to become the first British WRC champion in 24 years - and the first Welshman ever to take the accolade.

Despite another impressive year, Evans is playing down his chances of emulating Richard Burns' 2001 world title, insisting that the race for the championship is "still very open" after "an up-and-down season".

"Anything can happen in sport but rallying is in particular quite unpredictable," said Evans, who made his WRC debut in 2011.

Heading into the penultimate round in Japan (6-9 November), Evans - with 247 points - is 13 ahead of team-mates Kalle Rovanpera and eight-time world champion Sebastien Ogier, who are tied on 234.

His two Toyota Gazoo Racing colleagues are a big reason for the Welsh driver falling agonisingly short time and time again, the pair between them winning the championship in four of the past five years.

And having finished second in four of those previous five campaigns, Evans is approaching the climax to the season with caution.

He said: "It's nice to be back on top, but it doesn't mean too much. The points are very close between three of us heading into the final two rounds.

"I have no expectation for the end of the year, only to try our best, of course, the goal is to try and win."

Can it be Japanese joy and Saudi success?

Between them Kalle Rovanpera (left), Elfyn Evans (centre) and Sebastien Ogier have won 10 of 12 rallies this season

Motorsport has always been a family affair for Dolgellau-born Evans. His father, Gwyndaf Evans, was a 1996 British Rally champion and a former WRC driver.

But it was Evans' grandfather who first put him behind the wheel, a journey that started in Gwynedd and continues to take him around the world in pursuit of the ultimate goal.

After 12 rallies of an extended 2025 calendar - including wins in Sweden and Kenya - Evans is within touching distance of history.

Although an uncertain test awaits in a new Saudi Arabia finale, the north Walian can line-up with cautious confidence in Toyota City, having secured victory in season-ending Japan rallies in both 2023 and 2024.

"It's very easy to make even the smallest mistake, which normally goes very harshly punished in Japan, so it's a rally where we're going to need to be as accurate as possible," said Evans.

The former Seat and Ford driver is part of a Toyota team that have already won the Manufacturers' World Championship for the fifth year in a row.

And as so often happens in motorsport, Evans' team-mates are also his closest rivals.

Rovanpera is the youngest ever world champion after winning back-to-back championships in 2022 and 2023.

Now 25 and in his final season before leaving WRC for new challenges, the Finnish driver has already won three rallies this year and will be ready to pounce on any mistakes from his team-mate.

Ogier, 41, is looking to tie Sebastien Loeb's record of nine WRC titles. The Frenchman has won five rallies this season and led the championship before a crash at last month's Central European Rally handed the advantage back to the Welshman.

Despite the competition, Evans says relationships are good.

"We all get on fairly well in the team," he explained.

"Rallying is quite unique in that we're racing against the clock rather than physically against each other on track.

"That normally means we get on a bit better in the background and the team has a very good atmosphere on the whole.

"Everything is shared among the drivers, so everything is very open and we tend to try and race it out on the stages, so normally we get on pretty well."

Evans has been competing against the best of the best for years. If he is able to join his team-mates as a world champion the achievement will be monumental.

Fourteen years after his first WRC race he is as close as he has ever been to glory.

Evans will be hoping a journey that started in Dolgellau could have the greatest of endings in Jeddah via Japan.