ELFYN Evans has snatched second place at Rally Sweden which was won by Esapekka Lappi and Janne Ferm, their first FIA World Rally Championship victory since 2017.

Driving a Hyundai i20 N Rally1 on Pirelli tyres, the Finns maintained their comfortable overnight advantage to complete their first outing of 2024 in style.

The result made it back-to-back victories for the Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team, which also won the season-opening Rallye Monte-Carlo last month.

Behind Lappi, Toyota’s Elfyn Evans snatched second from Adrien Fourmaux when the Frenchman lost time striking a snowbank on Sunday’s first test.

But the M-Sport Ford Puma driver didn’t let that momentknock him off his stride as he raced to his maiden WRC podium in third.

Despite sliding his Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid into a snowbank at high speed on SS17, Evans topped the Super Sunday classification to bag seven world championship points under new rules for 2024.

World champion Kalle Rovanperä claimed five points for setting the pace through the rally-deciding Wolf Power Stage, albeit by 0.039sec ahead of Evans, following his Saturday morning restart.

And there was home success in the WRC2 category with Oliver Solberg repeating his 2023 feat by winning the Rally2-based division.