ELFYN Evans picked up useful points for the M-Sport team as he climbed to sixth place on Rally Argentina, the fifth round of the FIA World Rally Championship.

Evans and co-driver Daniel Barritt may have struggled to find their usual pace, but a controlled and error-free drive behind the wheel of their EcoBoost-powered Ford Fiesta WRC delivered a solid finish.

They were hoping for more, but they certainly had no issues in the fog which on the first pass of ‘Cuchilla Nevada – Rio Pintos’ (SS11) caused others problems.

Whereas their rivals struggled to find their rhythm, Evans was at one with his pace notes - delivering a committed drive and climbing two places in the process.

Evans, from Dinas Mawddwy, climbed another place and remains resolute on recovering his form when the Championship returns to Europe.

“All things considered, sixth place isn’t a bad result, and it was good to get some solid points on the board,” said Evans.

“But the pace just wasn’t there this weekend. It was disappointing and not what we came here to do.

"We need to do some analysis to try and understand why that was. The engineers will study the data, I’ll study the onboards, and hopefully we can get back on it in Portugal.”

It was in stark contrast to his appearance in 2017, when Evans was on course to win, until a mistake on the final stage allowed Thierry Neuville to take victory by 0.7sec.

Evans said: “On the whole I felt that the driving wasn’t particularly bad, but the times just haven’t been there.

“We tried to look for set-up changes during service, but it was really difficult to do anything in such a short space of time.”

Evans couldn’t point to one particular area that held him back but is eager to find a solution before his next appearance on gravel at Vodafone Rally de Portugal (17-20 May).

“I have a few rallies that perhaps historically I’ve not been as strong at, but honestly there is nothing that is standing out at this particular rally than others in the past,” he explained.

“Certainly on some stages the time loss was a lot more than we expected so let’s wait and see."

M-Sport Team Principal, Malcolm Wilson OBE, added: “Elfyn also secured a solid result, despite it being a difficult weekend for him."I think we were all surprised to see him struggle as much as he did - himself included. But he certainly had no issues in the fog and it was that drive on Saturday morning which enabled him to get good points on the board.”

A dominant Ott Tänak scored his third WRC victory, and his first for Toyota Gazoo Racing to win the fifth round of the World Championship by 37.7 seconds.

The Estonian looked down and out after hitting a rock, spinning his Yaris WRC car and damaging its steering in the opening special stage, but he won 10 of the next 12 tests to storm into a comfortable lead.

Second position for Thierry Neuville enhanced his own title hopes as he narrowed the gap to championship leader Sébastien Ogier to 10 points, helped by a maximum five bonus points for winning the final Power Stage in his Hyundai i20.

Team-mate Dani Sordo finished a further 38.0sec behind in third to maintain his recent good form which has delivered two podiums from the last three events.

Ogier lacked pace to improve on his record of three wins from the first four rounds in a Ford Fiesta. The Frenchman held off a determined final day charge by Andreas Mikkelsen to claim fourth place.