Toyota City, Japan, Apr 24, 2023 – (JCN Newswire) – Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin have returned to the top step of the podium with TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team, taking victory at the Croatia Rally.
Together with their fellow podium finishers, Evans and Martin dedicated the result to their friend and fellow competitor Craig Breen, who tragically lost his life in the build-up to the event. Martin was previously co-driver to Breen between 2014 and 2018, claiming their first WRC podiums together.
A well-managed drive enabled Evans and Martin to claim their fifth win with TGR-WRT and their first since Rally Finland in 2021. The asphalt stages around Zagreb proved to be challenging once again, with frequent surface changes and a lot of mud and gravel being dragged onto the road, but Evans was able to find the right balance between caution and speed.
After gaining the lead on Saturday morning, he could increase his advantage in tricky conditions in the evening to 25.4 seconds, and extended that margin over half a minute in the first of Sunday’s four tests. This allowed a more cautious approach to the final stages, with a winning margin of 27s.
Team-mates Kalle Rovanpera and Sebastien Ogier completed the top five, recovering after hitting trouble in the same place on Friday’s second stage when heavy impacts in a compression in the road forced them to stop and change a wheel.
Both showed strong pace thereafter while competing closely with each other for position. Rovanpera and co-driver Jonne Halttunen won six stages in total to finish fourth, with Ogier and navigator Vincent Landais setting seven fastest times across the weekend as they took fifth.
Rovanpera and Ogier took second and third respectively in the rally-ending Power Stage. Ogier and Evans are now joint leaders of the drivers’ championship, one point ahead of Rovanpera.
As a mark of solidarity ahead of this event, only two drivers per team were nominated as eligible to score manufacturers’ championship points. With the results of Rovanpera and Ogier taken into account, TGR-WRT has a lead of 29 points.
Takamoto Katsuta rounded out the top six finishers in his GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID supported by the TGR WRC Challenge Program.
For more information, visit https://toyotagazooracing.com/wrc/release/2023/rd04-day3/.
