Elfyn Evans' hopes of claiming his first World Rally Championship title suffered a major blow on Friday when a puncture derailed his progress on the 11th special stage of Rally Saudi Arabia.
We didn’t get the best start this morning, on the last stage of the loop, we had a puncture alarm early on and we had to stop and change it. Unfortunately, we’ve dropped one position, so our target this afternoon now is to climb back up 👌🏼#EE33 #RallySaudiArabia pic.twitter.com/XHiDQFkg0a
— Elfyn Evans (@ElfynEvans) November 28, 2025
The Welshman had to change a rear-left puncture which cost him more than two minutes and dropped him to tenth overall by Friday's midpoint.
Crucially, he is three places and over two and half minutes behind his Toyota Gazoo Racing teammate and main title rival Sebastien Ogier.
"We had a puncture alarm right at the beginning," said Evans.
"It was going down quite slow but it was so far to go that we had to make a decision to change it where we could. Not ideal."
It’s not been the ideal day, a few errors this morning but
— Elfyn Evans (@ElfynEvans) November 27, 2025
the afternoon has been a clean run. The road has been evolving, it’s been very hard to make a difference and try to fight.
Tomorrow is a long day, we’ll give it our best! 🙌🏼#EE33 #RallySaudiArabia #ToyotaGAZOORacing pic.twitter.com/7RUpkHervq
Evans came to Saudi Arabia with a three-point lead over Ogier in the standings but if things remain the same it will be the Frenchman, who is now provisionally two points ahead of the Briton, who will take the title.
If Ogier does triumph it will be quite remarkable in that he has skipped four events in the 14-rally season.
It would also mark a ninth title, which would see him equal the record set by another French legend, Sebastien Loeb.
On Friday morning, Ogier was content to play it safe in order to avoid any problems ahead of the final day of the rally on Saturday.
"I didn't want to take too many risks this morning, especially after Elfyn had a puncture," said Ogier.
"But it doesn't change anything for us. The goal is to stay ahead of Kalle (Rovanpera) who is right behind us."
Rovanpera, who still has an outside chance of landing the title, also carried a slow puncture on stage 11 but did enough to consolidate eighth overall.
The rock-strewn tests, however, mean Ogier can take nothing for granted on Friday afternoon and Saturday.
Another Frenchman Adrien Fourmaux (Hyundai) still leads by 2.9sec ahead of Martins Sesks (M-Sport/Ford) but the top four, which also includes Sami Pajari (Toyota) and Ott Tanak (Hyundai), are separated by only 9.2sec.
"It's very intense, we saw two punctures in the last special stage," said Fourmaux.
"I'm actually surprised there aren't more, given how hard my rivals are pushing and taking risks.
"I'm really trying to avoid punctures so I'm losing a little time on some corners but that's my strategy and I'm sticking to it. I'm still in the lead, so that's good."