Shootout joy
for Evans

Held over two days in the United Kingdom earlier this week, the competition featured 11 of best young talents from Fiesta SportTrophy series around the world for a number of mental and physical assessments.

After completing three runs over a temporary broken asphalt course at Carlisle Airport in north-west England, the five best performers at that stage were tasked with convincing M-Sport head Malcolm Wilson that they were worthy of the top prize.

Following a lengthy period of deliberation, Wilson chose Evans, who competed in the UK Fiesta series alongside his WRC Academy campaign this year, as the recipient of a 12-month residential employment contract with FIA World Rally Championship team M-Sport.

He will combine working at M-Sport with his award for winning the WRC Academy crown: either a 13-round season in the WRC in a Fiesta R2 or a five-event campaign in a Fiesta S2000.

“I am very happy to have won the Shootout,” said Evans (pictured right with Wilson, centre, and runner-up Hugo Arellano, left). “Alongside the prize from the Academy, I think the two will complement each other perfectly. It will give me a fantastic opportunity to move away from home and meet and work with a lot of new people, and I am sure I’ll learn a lot along the way.

“The competition was tough and the conditions were tough. It was very difficult to find the balance between going quickly and not making any mistakes. We tried to ensure that we had a clean run on each of the passes, and in the end it all paid off. This was the perfect end to what has been an unbelievable season.”