DOLGELLAU’S Elfyn Evans finished fifth at Croatia Rally over the weekend after two punctures on Friday cost him dearly.

Evans recorded the fastest time in SS3 but also lost close to two minutes during the morning loop after twice finishing a stage with a tyre off its rim. In the afternoon he moved up to sixth place, and was 10.6s away from fifth overnight.

On Saturday, the 33 year old recorded the fastest time in the day’s opening stage and moved up to fifth overall – also placing second on two of the morning’s other tests.

And on Sunday the Toyota Gazoo driver ended the rally fifth overall and third in the Power Stage, scoring some important points towards both championships as he looks to move forward from a difficult start to his season.

The event was won by team-mate Kalle Rovanperä in a thrilling finish to the Croatia Rally, extending his FIA World Rally Championship lead in epic style.

Trailing by 1.4 seconds to Ott Tänak going into the final rally-ending Power Stage Rovanperä produced a stunning run, 5.6s quicker than Tänak and 21.8s faster than anybody else to secure his second successive victory and a maximum points haul. That increases his championship lead after three rounds to 29 points. It is the 21-year-old’s fourth career WRC win – all in the space of nine events – and his first on asphalt.

Evans said: “It was a pretty difficult final day. A lot of rain that we weren’t expecting and with four hard tyres that was very tough.

“But I was happy to secure the fifth place, which is better than nothing, and at least we managed to top it up with a few points from the Power Stage – which was pretty much as good as we could expect with the tyre choice we had in those conditions.

“Overall it’s been a really difficult weekend again for us. When we had a start like we had on Friday and were effectively last already, it’s difficult to fight back. But we try to look positively to Portugal and hope for better. Congratulations to Kalle. He did an incredible job all weekend and clearly deserved to win.”