Japan threw the proverbial kitchen sink at World Rally Championship crews as extreme changeable weather added to the already demanding rally of 10,000 corners. But the ‘four-seasons-in-one-day’ conditions failed to derail Elfyn Evans from delivering Toyota the home win it so craved.
With Kalle Rovanpera and Toyota having wrapped up the respective drivers’ and manufacturers’ titles in October, you could be forgiven for thinking that the WRC season finale in the land of the rising sun would be a relaxed dead rubber affair. It was anything but. After Toyota had suffered defeat to rival Hyundai on home soil last year, the pressure for the marque to win a rally held in its own back yard, Toyota City, was palpable.
But the rally gods seemingly didn’t want to give in to Toyota’s wishes easily, and rain, sunshine and even snow showers tested crews to their very limits. It was perhaps fitting that Evans and Scott Martin, who were denied a shot at victory in Japan last year by a final-day puncture, produced one of the drives of the season to clinch victory. Toyota got what it wished for and more when Sebastien Ogier and Rovanpera completed a dream 1-2-3 to underline the manufacturer’s domination of 2023. “Of course, under the circumstances it’s special to win with your teammates side by side,” smiled Evans. “It’s been mega.”
