Here is the thing about the 2026 World Rally Championship: after more than 4,000 competitive kilometres across 13 rallies, the entire season came down to a final-stage shootout in Sardegna. The battle pitted newly crowned world rally champion Elfyn Evans and co-driver Scott Martin against their Toyota Gazoo Racing team-mates Oliver Solberg and Elliott Edmondson.
That edge-of-the-seat finish secured Evans his maiden world title and has since pulled in millions of views through media coverage and social media platforms, dragging the WRC straight in front of entirely new audiences. For Evans, the sheer enormity of becoming world rally champion and realizing a 20-year dream in such extraordinary circumstances is still sinking in.
I can’t thank everybody enough for turning up and waiting at the end but also for everybody that was involved in putting the event together,
"It has been a lot of years of trying and many times I have been quite close and didn’t quite get there," Evans explained. "There is probably more of an element of relief at this point to finally get one over the line. But now I want to prepare for what is next."
Even with his eyes already fixed on a 2027 title defense, Evans hopes the incredible drama of that showdown will leave a permanent mark on the championship. The wild climax featured a puncture on the penultimate stage before the ultimate winner-take-all sprint to the flag.
"If you tried to write that script, I think someone would pull you up on it as it sounds far-fetched," Evans said. "We had the puncture on the penultimate stage and then we had a shootout. I threw everything at it and a lot of things have to come together to get a good time and it wasn’t one of those runs. That script would have been difficult to write for a movie I think, the way that everything played out. Right until the end there was drama so of course for the sport it is amazing. The sport has to be the winner of it all and obviously I didn’t do too bad out of it either. I just hope for some positive things for the sport off the back of it."
That stunning title success was properly honored at a special event in his home town of Dolgellau in Wales last week, where thousands of fans turned out to celebrate the nation’s first WRC drivers’ champion. Looking back on the homecoming, Evans thanked Gwynedd Council, the volunteers, and his friend Glenn Patterson for helping bring the celebration together.
"I can’t thank everybody enough for turning up and waiting at the end but also for everybody that was involved in putting the event together," he stated. "It is a bit surreal still and I can only be very grateful for everybody that came. I’m sure it will be [one of the major moments of my life]. To have the Rally1 car in the centre of town just outside my dad’s car dealership is incredible."
