Evans regains WRC lead as Ogier wins in Canaries

Elfyn Evans has returned to the top of the World Rally Championship (WRC) standings after finishing second behind Sebastien Ogier at Rally Islas Canarias.

The Welsh driver, who collected a maximum 10 Sunday bonus points alongside 17 as runner-up, now leads Toyota team-mate Takamoto Katsuta by two points after five of the 14 rounds.

Evans, 37, finished 19.9 seconds behind eight-time world champion Ogier. Finland's Sami Pajari was third with Japan's Katsuta and Irish co-driver Aaron Johnston fourth, as Toyota's Gazoo Racing filled the top four places.

"It has been a solid weekend," said Evans.

"It was a poor start and that put us out of the fight for the win. I have had mixed feelings. Congrats to Seb, he has driven an exceptional weekend."

Josh McErlean finished eighth in the Spanish round of the championship, while Motorsport Ireland and M-Sport Ford team-mate Jon Armstrong placed 11th.

Image caption,

Jon Armstrong and co-driver Shane Byrne hit an Armco barrier on Friday and went off the road on Saturday

It was the most testing rally so far for Armstrong on his debut season in WRC1, losing more than two minutes on Saturday when spectators had to help his car back onto the road.

"It has been quite a challenging weekend there is no doubt about that," said the 31-year-old Fermanagh driver.

"It has taken a long time to get on top of a tyre on this rally. I think we have been progressing and we need to understand how we can improve.

"It has not been a great rally, but sometimes you will have worse ones than good ones."

Toyota had been on course to claim the top five spots, but Rally Monte Carlo winner Oliver Solberg crashed out on the penultimate stage.

Solberg - who won six of the weekend's 18 stages - had been second on the road, two seconds behind Ogier, but was forced to retire his badly damaged Yaris, leaving him with no points for round five.

It was a first win of the season for the 42-year-old Frenchman, who had sat out Rally Sweden - won by Evans - and the previous round in Croatia where Katsuta took his second victory in a row following success in Kenya.

The teams now head to Portugal for round six from 7-10 May.