By Paul Evans

Elfyn Evans has crashed out of Rally Argentina, after hitting a massive rock on the inside of a corner and damaging the chassis and transmission on his Ford Fiesta WRC.

It’s not possible for the car to be repaired for Evans to return tomorrow under the Rally 2 rules, but the M-Sport team will repair the car in readiness for Rally Chile, which follows straight after this event.

Evans was in sixth place starting Saturday’s second stage (SS10), just 5.7 seconds behind Andreas Mikkelsen, when he came into a corner too fast, hit a boulder and rolled.

Frustratingly Mikkelsen is now second overall, leaving Evans and co-driver Scott Martin to rue what could have been their third podium finish in as many events.

“I’ve used these notes for quite a few years and not had a problem before, but when I arrived at the corner I felt I was carrying just a little bit too much speed,” explained Evans.

“I threw it in, and we made the corner to be fair, but I couldn’t recover the oversteer. I planted the throttle but couldn’t get the car straight and we hit a fairly massive boulder that was lining the road.”

“It’s a frustrating end to the day as Elfyn could have easily been in a podium place right now,” added M-Sport Team Principal Richard Millener. “Unfortunately, he just got a little out of shape and managed to find the only massive rock in about three miles!

“The impact was pretty heavy and when we got the car back to service we saw that there was too much damage to the chassis and transmission to continue. The technicians are already on with preparing the car for Chile, and it looks as though we will be okay.

“Elfyn and Scott are already focused on this next event and the plan is to come back fighting. In fact the mechanics have already made it clear to Elfyn – they’ll fix the car, providing he gets a strong result in Chile!”