Upbeat Evans boosted by Estonia test

The Toyota Gazoo Racing driver arrives into round seven (14 - 17 July) on the back of second place at last month’s Safari Rally Kenya, but still chasing his first win of the FIA World Rally Championship’s hybrid generation.

A stunning Finland win last season demonstrates the Welshman’s speed on fast gravel, but he’s taking nothing for granted.

“We’ve had strong performances on all the rallies at some point or other,” said the Yaris GR pilot. “We really have to find a good place with the car and that’s what we’re focusing on trying to deliver.

“We have a great start position in Estonia, we’re just on the fringes of the top six and the target is to move up and look for the strongest result possible. Estonia’s not an event that’s been particularly kind to us in the past, but the feeling in the test was quite OK and I hope we can turn that into some speed in the rally.

“There’s always stuff we can improve and that’s always going to be the case this year, but overall the feeling was positive.”

The Welshman observed fast gravel would provide the final piece of the Rally1 jigsaw for this season.

“Estonia and Finland back-to-back are the first fast rallies of the new season with the new cars – I think we’re yet to see everybody’s strengths. The other teams have shown great speed and we can take nothing for granted [from the first half of the year].

“[Personally] we haven’t had a great start to the year, it’s time to get our head down and get some results,” added Evans, who lies sixth in the championship and trails leader and team-mate Kalle Rovanperä by 88 points.