The championship leader feels "nobody's listening" to drivers' requests to ensure shakedowns are more like the actual rallies
Photography by Toyota
Words by Luke Barry
World Rally Championship leader Elfyn Evans is frustrated that “nobody’s listening” to drivers’ calls to make sure shakedown is representative of the competitive event.
The Olbia Cabu Abbas test that was used as shakedown for this week’s Rally Italy Sardinia has previously featured on the rally itinerary – as recently as 2023 – but features different characteristics to typical Sardinian stages.
Article 36.1 of the FIA WRC regulations stipulates that the shakedown stage “should be representative for the rally”, but Evans clearly felt that wasn’t the case in Italy.
“It’s massively disappointing, but not new,” the Toyota driver told DirtFish.
“We keep saying this over and over and over, but nobody’s listening. You know, it’s even written in the regulation that the shakedown should be representative to the rest of the rally, and I haven’t seen any other stages like that on the recce.”
It’s a particularly difficult situation for Evans and his Toyota team-mates, who due to testing restrictions opted not to conduct a specific pre-event test for Sardinia.
Asked how necessary it is to have a representative shakedown stage, Evans replied: “I think especially with the testing regulations we have, it’s vital.
“You know, if you want to let us only have seven test days a year, then you at least need to be sure that we have a decent shakedown and that we can do some work at least before the rally starts.”
Evans’ peers all agreed with him; Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux described shakedown as “not representative at all”.
Evans is currently paying the price for such a strong start to his season.
Ever since victory in Sweden back in February, he’s led the championship – and quite convincingly. But now in the middle of a run of consecutive gravel rallies, he’s carrying the handicap of opening the road on the first day.
“I don’t really have a mindset other than to do the best job I can,” Evans said. “That’s all you can do.
Evans will do a lot of gravel sweeping this weekend, but is refusing to panic about the points he may lose
“It still doesn’t feel good when you see the times coming in, but you have to just try and ignore that and focus on driving well and that’s it.
“Ultimately with the road positions as they are, we still see a massive evolution on Sunday,” he added. “So you know that road position gets knocked on to Saturday, gets knocked on to Sunday, so you’re always on the back foot if you have a bad Friday.”
Evans’ focus is on bettering what he did in Portugal, which he himself admitted was disappointing.
He is however aware it’s “always positive” to be 30 points out front, although was keen to stress it’s not that large an advantage considering how competitive the WRC is these days,
“I think everybody was very excited by the end of Canaries, the way it was looking,” he said.
“But we knew realistically, leading into seven dry gravel rallies, how that goes and it’s very easy to forget how significant a disadvantage it is [to be first on the road], especially with the field and the level of competition we have.
“So we just have to continue to give our best at every rally. It’s a long season still, and we have to not panic.”
Words:Luke Barry
Tags: Elfyn Evans, Rally Italy Sardinia, Rally Italy Sardinia 2025, Shakedown, WRC, WRC 2025
Publish Date June 5, 2025 DirtFish 
https://dirtfish-editorial.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/2025/06/zhg2XEgQ-EVANS05POR25tb405-780x520.jpg June 5, 2025
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