Elfyn Evans: Wales Finally has its World Rally Champion
WALES has produced world champions across plenty of sports, but this one has been a long time coming.
Elfyn Evans is the 2026 World Rally Champion, finally reaching the summit of international rallying after years in which one of motorsport’s biggest prizes had repeatedly slipped agonisingly from his grasp.
The Dolgellau-born driver and co-driver Scott Martin secured their first FIA World Rally Championship title at Rally Italia Sardegna on Sunday, October 4, bringing a dramatic conclusion to a season that went virtually to the final corners.
Evans finished the championship on 243 points, five ahead of Toyota team-mate Oliver Solberg, with Sami Pajari another point behind. He becomes the first Welsh driver to win the WRC drivers’ championship and Britain’s first world rally champion since Richard Burns in 2001.
For Evans, the achievement feels particularly significant because of what came before it.
He had already finished runner-up in the World Rally Championship five times, including four consecutive second places from 2023 to 2025. In 2020 he arrived at the final round at Monza leading the championship, only for his title hopes to disappear when he slid off the road in difficult snowy conditions.
Further near-misses followed. As recently as 2025, Evans lost the championship by just four points.
This time, however, the story had a different ending.
Evans arrived in Sardinia with a 17-point advantage over Pajari and 21 points over Solberg, but his position was far from comfortable. Being first onto the loose gravel stages made life difficult early in the rally, while Solberg steadily forced his way into contention.
By the final day, what had once looked like a useful championship cushion had become a genuine cliff-hanger.
Then came another twist.
A puncture on the penultimate stage forced Evans to stop and change a wheel, costing him around two minutes and leaving the championship to be decided on the final Power Stage.
Solberg was suddenly in position to complete an extraordinary comeback.
Evans reached the finish.
Solberg, pushing for the points he needed, went off the road just two corners from the end.
Only then was the championship finally Evans’ after years of trying.
There is a particularly strong Welsh thread running through the story.
Evans was born in Dolgellau in December 1988 and grew up surrounded by rallying. His father, Gwyndaf Evans, was himself a British Rally Champion, while Elfyn’s grandfather helped introduce the future world champion to driving.
His first World Rally Championship appearance came at Wales Rally GB in 2007, and ten years later Evans claimed his first WRC victory on home soil at the same event.
That Welsh connection makes this much more than another international motorsport success story.
For decades, Wales was an important part of the World Rally Championship calendar. Generations of fans stood in Welsh forests to watch some of the greatest names in rallying compete on stages that became famous around the world.
Now Wales has produced a world champion of its own.
Evans joins an exceptionally exclusive British group. Before him, only Scotland’s Colin McRae and England’s Richard Burns had won the World Rally Championship.
For Welsh motorsport, it is difficult to imagine a more important achievement.
It also comes at an intriguing moment for rallying itself. The championship is preparing for a new technical era, while Ford has announced plans to return as a full factory WRC team from 2028. Evans therefore becomes champion at the end of one chapter in the sport and just as another begins.
But perhaps the most satisfying aspect of the story is simply perseverance.
Evans had been close before — very close.
He had experienced championship leads disappear, final-round disappointment and seasons ending just a handful of points short.
Yet he remained among the sport’s elite year after year.
At 37, Elfyn Evans can finally add the two words that had been missing from an already outstanding career:
World Champion.
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Did Ewe Know?
Elfyn Evans’ first World Rally Championship victory came at Wales Rally GB in 2017 — meaning his journey from first WRC win to world champion began on the very roads and forest stages that helped establish Wales as one of rallying’s most celebrated destinations.