ELFYN Evans said that he wasn’t totally satisfied with finishing third at Safari Rally Kenya, a podium at the event for the second year in a row.

But he was proud that his Toyota Gazzo Racing team achieved an incredible clean sweep of the top four positions on Safari Rally Kenya for the second year in succession.

The Dolgellau driver said: “It’s been quite a rally with a lot of challenges, so I think the team can be very proud to again get four cars in the top four.

“It shows both the speed and the strength of the GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid and I’m proud to be a part of that and of this team.

“Of course, from a personal perspective I can’t be totally satisfied to be third in the order at the finish, but I’m very pleased for the team and of course to be on the podium in third means we take some reasonable points for the championship as well.”

He added: “Overall it wasn’t the best weekend for us. It wasn’t our strongest performance but it was a tough Safari Rally and we managed to get the car to the end despite lots of little issues, and that’s important here.”

Sébastien Ogier won the epic African event ahead of team-mates Kalle Rovanperä, Elfyn Evans and Takamoto Katsuta.

TGR-WRT remains unbeaten on the toughest round of the FIA World Rally Championship since it returned to the calendar in 2021, with Toyota’s all-time Safari record now extended to 11 victories – 10 of those achieved as part of the WRC.

The 1-2-3-4 finish comes 30 years to the month since Toyota first recorded such a result in Kenya with the Celica ST185, something it repeated with the GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID in 2022.

It’s the first time any manufacturer has managed the feat on the same WRC round on three separate occasions, or to do it in two successive editions of a rally.

Ogier’s second Safari success in three years is also his third victory from five starts so far this season together with co-driver Vincent Landais. They led ever since the first full-length stage of the rally on Friday morning, and came into Sunday with a lead of 16.7 seconds over last year’s Safari winners, Rovanperä and Jonne Halttunen.

Six stages and 74.38 competitive kilometres remained on the final day and the top two crews continued to put on an exciting battle for the victory.

Rovanperä halved Ogier’s advantage in the morning’s first stage before Ogier recovered that ground in the next test, despite losing the rear wing and tailgate from his car.

This was repaired in the final service ahead of the last three stages, which still provided significant challenges with soft sand and deep ruts.

Ogier’s final winning margin was just 6.7 seconds: the smallest ever in Safari history, on an event usually decided by whole minutes.

Having set the third-best time in the rally-ending Power Stage to take three bonus points, Rovanperä increases his championship lead from 25 to 37 points following the mid-point event of the 13-round season.

Evans is now up to third in the standings, 41 from the lead, after he and co-driver Scott Martin made the Safari podium for the second year in a row.

They also started Sunday with an advantage of 16.7s, this time over Katsuta and Aaron Johnston, and managed to extend that to 25.3s over the course of the day.

TGR-WRT chairman Akio Toyoda said: “Since the Safari Rally came back to the WRC calendar, we have completed another year of great results, achieving three consecutive wins and finishing 1-2-3-4 for two years in a row.

“I would like to thank all drivers and co-drivers, mechanics, engineers, and all the other team members.

“Unlike other regions, ‘bringing the car home in one piece’ is strongly required in Africa, which has the harshest environment for cars.

“It is really great that our four GR Yaris Rally 1 Hybrid cars made it through and showed the reliability of Toyota in such African environments.

“However, looking at how the rally went, it was not achieved only by the reliability of the cars.

“It was the result of the combined effort of crews and mechanics/engineers.

• Next up is Rally Estonia (20-23 July), the first part of a double-header on fast gravel roads in the north of Europe. The stages around Tartu combine wide and narrow sections and a soft and sandy surface that can become rutted for the second pass.

Safari Rally Kenya results:

1 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) 3h30m42.5s

2 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +6.7s

3 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +2m58.5s

4 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +3m23.8s

5 Dani Sordo/Cándido Carrera (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +5m05.4s

6 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) +9m14.4s

7 Pierre-Louis Loubet/Nicolas Gilsoul (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) +16m15.7s

8 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +24m47.0s

9 Kajetan Kajetanowicz/Maciej Szczepaniak (Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo) +26m33.4s

10 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo) +27m04.0s