DOLGELLAU’S Elfyn Evans is not giving up on his chances of winning the World Rally Championship going into the final two rounds.

Fresh from its latest manufacturers’ championship success, Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team will face an all-new challenge at the penultimate round of the 2023 season: the Central European Rally (26-29 October) in Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria.

After TGR-WRT secured its third consecutive manufacturers’ title on the previous rally in Chile, attention now turns to which of Kalle Rovanperä and Elfyn Evans will win this year’s drivers’ title – the team’s fifth in succession – with their respective navigators Jonne Halttunen and Scott Martin in contention for the co-drivers’ crown.

There are 31 points between Rovanperä and Evans with a maximum of 60 available from the final two rounds, meaning Rovanperä could clinch his second consecutive championship in Central Europe if Evans does not outscore him. An Evans victory, on the other hand, would guarantee that their battle goes down to the wire at the final round at Rally Japan in November.

Evans said: “With two rounds to go, there’s still quite a big gap to Kalle in front of us in the championship but it’s not over yet, and we know how quickly things can change in this game.

“We’ll be trying everything we can to have two strong rallies to end the season and we’ll try to put the pressure on.

“This is going to be a new rally for everybody and with stages in three different countries, we need to try and have a setup that can work everywhere.

“With any new rally, it’s difficult to gauge from videos alone just what the stages will be like, but the weather is sure to play a massive part in how dirty the roads get and how much grip will be available.”

Following seven consecutive events on gravel on a wide variety of different roads across the globe, this will be the first round to be held on asphalt since the Croatia Rally in April. It will be the first modern FIA World Rally Championship round to feature stages driven in three different countries, marking a return to Germany for the first time since 2019 as well as a debut on Czech roads and Austria’s first appearance since the inaugural season in 1973.

The service park will be located in the German city of Passau with shakedown to take place in nearby Tittling on Wednesday afternoon. The rally will start from the Czech capital city Prague and its famous castle on Thursday lunchtime, before an opening super special stage at the Velká Chuchle horse racing course on the outskirts of the city. A further circuit stage around Klatovy follows in the evening before crews return to Passau.

Friday’s action also takes place solely on Czech roads, with a trio of stages to be run twice either side of a tyre-fitting zone in Prachatice. Saturday’s route features two tests in Austria and another in Germany, all to be repeated after mid-day service in Passau, while one stage on either side of the German-Austrian border will be run twice to form Sunday’s finale.