Sports04 October, 20262 min read
Elfyn Evans Wins Britain’s First World Rally Championship In 25 Years After Oliver Solberg Crash
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Evans claimed his first WRC title, Britain's first in 25 years, after Sardinia. Solberg crashed near the finish of the Power Stage, costing him the title.
5 outlets told this the same way.
Evans wins after Solberg crash
Elfyn Evans became Britain's first world rally champion for 25 years after Oliver Solberg crashed in a dramatic finish to the season in Italy at the Rally Italia Sardegna. Evans and co-driver Scott Martin led for much of the 2026 season and took a 21-point advantage into the final round in Sardinia, but that gap shrank to a solitary point by the time the drivers lined up for the last of 17 stages. Solberg, who needed only to beat his Toyota team-mate in the final stage to claim enough bonuses to be champion, lost control with a few hundred metres to go and his crash left him finishing nine seconds slower than his team-mate and five points behind Evans in the overall standings.
Evans, from Dolgellau in north Wales, said, "It hasn't sunk in," and he added, "I was sure it was over." Gazoo Racing team principal Jari-Matti Latvala encouraged Solberg to take to the podium, and Solberg said, "Two corners, two corners."
Power Stage duel
The title fight narrowed to the final stage as Evans started the last of 17 stages with a solitary point lead, and the decisive moment came when Solberg made a mistake in the penultimate corner of the 17th and final stage.
Evans and Scott Martin reached the last stretch of the season with a 7.1 km route of rocks and sand toward the Mediterranean, and the finish turned on the final Power Stage.
Evans said, "I don't really know what my reaction is. It's surreal with how it happened. It's a relief," and he framed the outcome as "It's job done."
Oliver Solberg and English co-driver Elliott Edmondson were 1.9 seconds up on Evans with barely a kilometre to run of the final stage, but Solberg's crash meant he finished nine seconds slower than his team-mate.
Sébastien Ogier finished second in the rally, and the BBC said Solberg won the rally by almost a minute ahead of nine-time world champion Sebastien Ogier.
Aftermath and season context
The WRC season was reduced to 13 rounds when the Saudi Arabia event, originally planned for next month, was cancelled because of the ongoing unrest in the Middle East. Rally Italia Sardegna marked the end of Jon Armstrong's rookie season at the top level of WRC, and Armstrong finished seventh after saying, "It's been good to have a clean weekend with a strong result." Josh McErlean retired after a collision with a tree, and he also had to stop twice on Sunday before finishing well off the pace while claiming ninth spot in the championship.
The BBC said Evans becomes only the third British man to win the WRC title after Colin McRae in 1995 and Richard Burns in 2001, and it also noted that Evans and Scott Martin led for much of the 2026 season. The BBC reported that the final rally result had Oliver Solberg first, Sebastien Ogier second, Sami Pajari third, Adrien Formaux fourth, and Elfyn Evans fifth.