Welshman Elfyn Evans (Toyota) won Rally Portugal, 4th round of the World Rally Championship (WRC), winning without a hitch Sunday on the sandy tracks in the north of the country ahead of Spaniard Dani Sordo (Hyundai) .
The French Sébastien Ogier (Toyota), seven-time world champion, finished in 3rd position and remains at the head of the championship with a two-point advantage over Evans, his new runner-up.
At the helm of the race since the penultimate stage on Saturday, marked by the retirement of Estonian Ott Tänak who then led the race with authority, the 32-year-old Briton completed the last of the rally's twenty stages with a 28 3/10 seconds advantage over Sordo and almost a minute and a half over Ogier.
“Not a pleasant weekend” for Ogier
“We might not have been the fastest team this weekend, but the pace was really good and we avoided the problems. And today we did enough to leave Dani behind, ”responded Evans after crossing the finish line. “It hasn't been a pleasant weekend for us, but the points are worth taking,” said Ogier, who is aiming for an eighth title in his final full-time year in the WRC. Evans' victory is the fourth of his WRC career, following successes in Sweden and Turkey that earned him a second place in the league last year, in Ogier's seventh coronation.
Despite the second place of Sordo, Hyundai had a difficult weekend on Lusitanian soil, with the retirements of the Belgian Thierry Neuville on Friday, when he was second, then of the Estonian Ott Tänak, also victim of a broken suspension.
Tänak and Neuville consoled themselves on Sunday by taking the first two places in the "power stage", synonymous with bonus points, ahead of Ogier.
However, this was not enough to prevent Neuville from being overtaken by Evans in the drivers' standings.
In the constructors' championship, Toyota (183 points) widened the gap ahead of Hyundai (146 pts) and the Fords of the M-Sport team (64 pts).
Read also
The World Championship will run on sustainable fuel in 2022