DOLGELLAU’S Elfyn Evans had to settle for a place on the podiumafter finishing what he described as one of the toughest Rallye Monte-Carlo of his career.

The 37-year-old finished second as Toyota Gazoo Racin World Rally Team secured a podium lockout on a hugely challenging edition of the legendary event which was won by Oliver Solberg with Sébastien Ogier in third place.

Evans said: “This is a fantastic result for the team and a huge congratulations to Oliver and Elliott on an amazing performance.

“Of course, it would have been nice to fight for the win but we just didn’t have what it took to match them here this weekend.

“It’s definitely been the toughest Rallye Monte-Carlo of my career.

“There have been others that have been difficult, but I think the combination of everything made it a really challenging weekend.

“Even today there was no break from the trickiness, and to finish with good points on Sunday is good for us.”

Beginning their first season in the TGR-WRT Rally1 line-up in the most spectacular style, Solberg and co-driver Elliott Edmondson have now claimed two wins from their first two starts in the GR YARIS Rally1 car following their victory on debut at last year’s Rally Estonia.

Solberg led the rally from the second stage on Thursday evening, and the 24-year-old becomes the youngest ever winner of Rallye Monte-Carlo in the modern era – just under a year younger than Ogier was when he scored the first of his 10 wins back in 2009. Solberg is also the first member of his famous rallying family to win the event.

The result is the first podium lockout by a single manufacturer on the event since 2015, and the first time that Toyota has achieved the feat. Solberg’s victory is the seventh achieved with a Toyota car.

While Rallye Monte-Carlo is famed for winter weather conditions on the roads of the French Alps, this year’s edition was the most demanding for many years. Most of the stages were covered in a combination of snow, ice, rain and mud, with very little in the way of dry asphalt.

Solberg had never finished higher than 14th in six previous starts on the event, but appeared confident and relaxed at the wheel of his GR YARIS Rally1.

The conditions brought many potential pitfalls, and Solberg did dramatically slide off the road in one stage on Saturday, only to navigate his way back out of a field and still win the stage.

Sunday’s final leg in the mountains above Monaco brought more challenging ice and snow conditions, including over the iconic Col de Turini, and Solberg would have a couple more wide moments but he eventually secured the win by 51.8 seconds.

Evans and co-driver Scott Martin finished second to score their fifth Rallye Monte-Carlo podiums from seven attempts with TGR-WRT.

They also won the rally-ending Power Stage by 6.5s over Solberg, and came second in the Super Sunday classification (as the quickest Rally1 crew) to start the season with a strong points haul.

Ogier, co-driven by Vincent Landais, was in a close fight with Evans for much of the rally before eventually settling for his 15th podium from 17 Rallye Monte-Carlo starts, as well as going third-fastest in the Power Stage.