DOLGELLAU’S Elfyn Evans is looking to build on his second place finish in Portugal earlier this months as the World Rally Championship heads to Sardinia this weekend.

His Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team is aiming to continue the winning run of the GR YARIS Rally1 at Rally Italia Sardegna on 2-5 June, the second part of a double-header on rough and rocky gravel roads in southern Europe.

The trip to the Mediterranean island of Sardinia comes hot on the heels of Rally de Portugal, where the team claimed a one-two finish in the first gravel event of the hybrid Rally1 era.

After three consecutive wins on three different surfaces, Kalle Rovanperä leads the championship by 46 points, with team-mate Elfyn Evans up to fifth in the standings after taking second place in Portugal.

Esapekka Lappi returns to action in Sardinia where he finished on the podium with the team in 2018.

Takamoto Katsuta will once more line up for TGR WRT Next Generation, having climbed to third in the points when he narrowly missed out on a podium in Portugal.

Sardinia’s stages are characterised by fast but narrow tracks which are lined with bushes, trees and rocks, leaving little margin for error.

The sandy surface gets swept away by each passing car to expose a rocky and abrasive base, which can combine with some of the highest temperatures of the season to provide a tough test for cars and tyres.

The service park returns to the seafront in Alghero on the island’s northwest after one year in Olbia in the east, which will still hold the start of the rally on Thursday evening complete with a new mixed-surface super special stage.

Friday and Saturday are made up of familiar roads from recent years, with one pair of stages run to be run twice in the morning before another two tests are repeated in the afternoon.

Saturday’s leg will be tackled without a midday service, which has been replaced by a tyre fitting zone.

For Sunday’s conclusion there’s a comeback after a year’s absence for the Cala Flumini and Sassari – Argentiera stages on the coast north of Alghero, with the latter once again hosting the rally-ending Power Stage.

Elfyn Evans said: “It was good to get a strong result on the board in Portugal and although I wasn’t fully satisfied with the weekend, it gives us something to build on in Sardinia.

“As a team we showed that we have a great starting point with the car on gravel and I think we can still improve some things for the next event.

“It helps to have two rallies in succession that are relatively similar in character, although the roads in Sardinia tend to have a harder base than the typical stages in Portugal.

“The weather is likely to be even hotter, so it is going to be a challenging weekend for the cars and the drivers.”