ELFYN Evans was ‘relatively pleased’ with a podium finish at Rally Islas Canarias over the weekend and ‘good points’ to add to his tally in the FIA World Rally Championship.

The Dolgellau driver finished third behind Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team team-mates Kalle Rovanperä, who claimed an emphatic victory and Sébastien Ogier in second place.

Based on the island of Gran Canaria, the event was making its debut in the championship.

As the first pure asphalt round of the season, it was also the first rally with the new hard-compound Hankook asphalt tyre.

Evans said: “It’s been a great weekend from the team with an incredible performance from the GR YARIS Rally1.

“A big thank you to the team who’ve done a great job understanding the challenges of this rally, preparing the car and adapting to the new tyres.

“A big well done to Kalle because he had pace that nobody else could match this weekend, and well done to Seb also.

“I’m not wholly satisfied of course to have been a bit behind them and not fight for the win with equal machinery, but it’s still good points and we have to be relatively pleased with that.”

The smooth and winding stages required ultimate confidence and performance and the GR YARIS Rally1 proved up to the task, never being headed in the stage times across the 18 stages.

Rovanperä and co-driver Jonne Halttunen won 15 stages – and all but one of the full-length tests in the mountains. Putting a challenging start to the season behind him, Rovanperä led overall from start to finish to return to the top step of the podium for the first time since Rally Chile last October.

He sealed the win by 53.5 seconds after also setting the best time in the rally-ending Power Stage and topping the Super Sunday classification to score a maximum of 35 points.

Ogier was Rovanperä’s closest challenger throughout the weekend, as he and co-driver Vincent Landais made a strong return to action for the first time since their win at January’s Rallye Monte-Carlo.

After finally getting the better of Rovanperä in the penultimate stage, he secured second overall and was second fastest in the Power Stage and Super Sunday. Evans and co-driver Scott Martin completed the podium – their fourth top-three finish from as many rounds so far this season – and also came third in the Power Stage and Super Sunday.

Those results increase Evans’ drivers’ championship lead to 43 points with Rovanperä now up into second. Takamoto Katsuta and his co-driver Aaron Johnston completed the top-four sweep: the third time that TGR-WRT has achieved such a result after doing so at Safari Rally Kenya in both 2022 and 2023.