Marmaris (Turkey) (AFP)
Welshman Elfyn Evans (Toyota) won the rally in Turkey on Sunday ahead of Thierry Neuville and Sébastien Loeb (Hyundai) and takes the lead of the World Championship (WRC) because Sébastien Ogier (Toyota) retired.
Already the victim of a puncture which caused him to lose nearly a minute in SS9 in the early morning, like Neuville and Loeb, Ogier then suffered a major engine failure in SS11 and retired, so that he was still aiming for the podium.
Neuville was 33 seconds ahead of Ogier and Sébastien Loeb, tied for 2nd, at the start of this third and final day but he punctured, like Ogier and Loeb, in Cetibeli (SS9, 38 km), the special that all pilots feared.
This series of punctures allowed Evans to take the lead with, after SS10, a nice safety margin over his rivals: 42 seconds ahead of Neuville, 46 over Ogier and 51 over Loeb, who were all aiming for a place in the podium.
The Toyota of Ogier immobilized in SS11 in a cloud of smoke, Evans then ensured to win this rally which he had missed last year because of a back injury.
He is now 18 points ahead of Ogier with two rounds to go, scheduled in Sardinia and Belgium.
The final Power Stage (SS12) allowed Neuville to take five bonus points in the championship and his teammate Ott Tänak, victim of a steering problem on Saturday, to take four to preserve the suspense in the race for the world title. .
© 2020 AFP