How Evans ended his WRC drought in sombre Croatia breakthrough

By:

Tom Howard

Apr 24, 2023, 2:15 PM

Elfyn Evans was without a win in the World Rally Championship's hybrid era prior to last weekend's Croatia round, but righted that statistic as the paddock united in grief following Craig Breen's death in a pre-event test crash. Here's how Toyota ace Evans reignited his title push, as Hyundai's hopes of a symbolic victory were dashed by Thierry Neuville's accident on Saturday

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“The most important thing is that everybody is here to drive for Craig Breen,” uttered world champion Kalle Rovanpera. That was the objective as the World Rally Championship headed to Croatia mourning the loss of the much-loved Hyundai driver following a tragic pre-event testing crash.

The title race was very much secondary to honouring and celebrating the 33-year-old Irishman taken too soon. Putting on a show that Breen would have wanted was paramount. It was perhaps fitting that Toyota’s Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin, the co-driver that guided Breen to his first WRC podium in 2016, came through in emotional scenes to end an 18-month WRC victory drought.

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Tom Howard

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Tom Howard is a News Editor working across both Autosport.com and Motorsport.com websites. Starting out as a sports reporter in local newspapers, Tom focussed on motorsport covering several national championships in the UK, including the BTCC.

After a period working as a freelance journalist, Tom moved to Australia in 2013 landing a job at leading Australian motorsport news outlet speedcafe.com, covering international motorsport events including F1, WRC and Supercars. Progressing to Editor in 2017, Tom was named Motorsport Australia Journalist of the Year for his work. He is also a two-time winner of Supercars Journalist of The Year (2017,2019) and a Supercars Championship Media Award winner in 2019.

Tom moved back to his native UK in 2020, firstly working in BTCC, before joining Autosport and motorsport.com in 2021.