Evans rues conservative Paraguay approach as WRC lead narrows

Here is the reality of top-flight rallying: one wrong turn in the tyre lottery and a comfortable cushion vanishes into thin air. arrived in South sitting 30 points clear at the top, but left with that advantage slashed by a third. The Welshman and co-driver Scott Martin had to settle for fourth overall, crossing the line 45.1sec behind the winner and just 5.1sec away from a podium finish after overhauled them during a blistering second half of the rally.

It started so brightly, too. Evans briefly led during Friday's attritional opening leg before tyre damage cost him around a minute and dropped him back to third. But it was the psychological toll of that early drama that truly derailed his weekend. Struck by the punctures and delaminations hitting the wider field, Evans elected to prioritize survival over speed for Saturday's running.

"We were too conservative yesterday, really," Evans admitted to WRC.com. "I think after all the drama on Friday, with so many tyres failing, we obviously thought a more conservative approach was better to try and avoid getting a puncture again. But it looks like the conditions were not as extreme as expected on Saturday. So in the end, yeah, it didn't work out too well for us."

Those forecasts for substantial rain never quite materialized on Saturday, leaving the opening stages largely dry and ripe for an attack. The Hyundai driver capitalized spectacularly, ripping through the stages to claim five wins on the day. That relentless charge transformed a 55.0sec deficit to Evans into a razor-thin 3.3sec margin by Saturday night, before the position swap was cemented on Sunday morning.

"It’s obviously not been an ideal weekend," Evans reflected. He pointed directly to the opening day misstep, noting they missed the right lottery numbers with the rubber and lacked the outright pace to fight with Adrien, who proved really strong throughout the weekend.

Thankfully, damage limitation kicked in when it mattered on the final day. Evans salvaged valuable championship points by taking fourth on the Wolf Power Stage and fifth in the Super Sunday classification. The standings now show Evans leading with 216 points to 's 196, with sitting third on 175. With a maximum of 105 points still up for grabs across Chile, Italy, and Saudi Arabia, this championship fight just got intensely real.