Elfyn Evans Won the 2026 WRC Title Beside Rovanpera, Latvala and Hirvonen

When Kalle Rovanpera clinched the 2022 world title at Rally New Zealand, he was 22 years and 1 day old. The record he broke had stood since 1995, when Colin McRae won at 27 years and 89 days. Rovanpera is one of four WRC drivers whose careers overlap and sometimes collide: Elfyn Evans, the Welshman who finally won the title in 2026, Jari-Matti Latvala, the aggressive Finn who won 18 rounds without a championship, and Mikko Hirvonen, who finished runner-up to Sebastien Loeb four times.

Who is Elfyn Evans?

Elfyn Rhys Evans, born on 28 December 1988, is a Welsh rally driver who has been a full-time World Rally Championship regular from 2014, at M-Sport Ford first and with Toyota Gazoo Racing from 2020. He won the 2026 championship, the first Welshman to do so and the first British champion since Richard Burns in 2001. He had been runner-up in 2020, 2021, 2023, 2024 and 2025, and his co-driver since 2019 is Scott Martin.

From Dolgellau to the WRC Academy

Evans was born in Dolgellau, the son of Gwyndaf Evans, the 1996 British Rally Champion and a former WRC driver. The family's Ford dealership, founded by his great-grandfather, was renamed Gwyndaf Evans Motors in 1983 and sponsors him. He started in 2006 at the wheel of a Nissan Micra in the Formula 1000 Forest Rally Championship, where he was runner-up. In 2010 he won the British Junior Rally championship, the UK Ford Fiesta Trophy and the Pirelli Star Driver Shoot-out, whose prize was a funded season in a Group N Subaru Impreza worth over 200,000 pounds. The year 2012 brought the WRC Academy title, the R2 crown in the British Rally Championship and the UK Fiesta Sport Trophy.

His prize for the Academy title was a programme of WRC events in 2013. At the Rally Italy in Sardinia he stepped into a Ford Fiesta World Rally Car with no pre-event testing, his first time in a WRC car, and finished sixth overall.

M-Sport years, 2014 to 2020

M-Sport signed Evans and co-driver Daniel Barritt for 2014 to drive a Fiesta WRC alongside Mikko Hirvonen. Fourth place in Mexico and Germany were the best results, plus a power stage win in Germany. In 2015 he scored two podiums and finished seventh overall, including second in Corsica, 43.10 seconds behind Latvala after losing the lead on Saturday's final stage. M-Sport then announced in November 2015 that it was dropping him to WRC-2 and replacing him with Eric Camilli. He responded with three WRC-2 wins, at Monte Carlo, Sweden and Tour de Corse, finished second in the class and won the 2016 British Rally Championship, taking five of seven races.

He rejoined M-Sport for 2017. In Argentina he lost his first victory by just 0.7 seconds to Hyundai's Thierry Neuville after a bridge strike on the final stage. Then came Wales. On his home rally his DMACK tyres suited the conditions, and he took a first WRC win that was also a first for a Welsh driver, and the first for any British driver on Wales Rally GB since Burns in 2000. He ended the season fifth.

Toyota and the title

In his first year at Toyota, 2020, Evans won Rally Sweden, which weather had cut to nine stages. For Toyota it was a first rally win, for Evans a first lead in the points, and no British driver had won the event before. A second win in Turkey helped him finish eight points behind Sebastien Ogier and nine ahead of Ott Tanak in the Covid-shortened season. In 2021 he won in Portugal and Finland and lost the title in the final rally by 0.6 seconds to teammate Ogier, finishing 23 points behind and 31 points clear of third-placed Neuville.

He went winless in 2022, finishing fourth with four podiums, and put the slump down to adapting less well than others to the new hybrid cars. Three wins in Croatia, Finland and Japan in 2023 brought a runner-up place behind Rovanpera, and a single win at Rally Japan in 2024 brought another second place, this time behind Neuville. In 2025 the hybrid systems were removed. Evans led for most of the season, but Ogier overhauled him to take the title at the final event in Saudi Arabia.

For 2026 Toyota paired him with Oliver Solberg, who replaced Rovanpera. Evans took five podiums and two wins in the first half of the season, and was declared champion after Solberg went off the road on the final stage of Rally Italia Sardegna.

The record Rovanpera broke had stood since 1995, when Colin McRae won at 27 years and 89 days.

Who is Kalle Rovanpera?

Kalle Alex Rovanpera, born on 1 October 2000 in Jyvaskyla, is a Finnish rally and racing driver who won the world championship in 2022 and 2023. His father Harri Rovanpera won a WRC round in Sweden in 2001. Footage of Kalle driving a rally car appeared online when he was eight, and he started his first rally at ten. Compatriots including Esapekka Lappi coached him, and Lappi said the young Rovanpera already knew as much as he did.

Latvia, then the WRC ladder

In 2015, aged 14, Rovanpera entered rallies in Latvia, where a driving licence is not required, and won the national R2 class in a Citroen C2 R2 Max. In 2016 he drove a 220 kW (300 hp) Skoda Fabia S2000, then a Fabia R5, and won the Latvian title at 16, the youngest national open-class champion in any country. In 2017 a special permission from the Finnish motorsport association let him enter Finnish rallies, and he finished second overall in his European Rally Championship debut at Rally Liepaja. Once he had his driving licence, he made his WRC debut at Wales Rally GB in an M-Sport Fiesta R5. At Rally Australia he won the WRC-2 class, which made him the youngest winner of a WRC-2 round, although nobody else was entered.

At Skoda Motorsport in 2018 he won Wales Rally GB and Rally Catalunya and finished third. In 2019 he won the WRC-2 Pro title, first winning at Rally Chile, taking the lead of the series at Rally de Portugal a round later, winning three more times and sealing it at Wales Rally GB. His only retirement was a crash at Tour de Corse. Toyota announced him for 2020 alongside Ogier and Evans.

Youngest winner, youngest champion

Rovanpera chose 69 as his car number. In his second top-class start, the 2020 Rally Sweden, he finished third, and at 19 years, 4 months and 16 days became the youngest WRC podium finisher. The 2021 season took him to the lead of the championship after a second place at Arctic Rally Finland. His first win came at Rally Estonia, at 21 years and 289 days, beating the 22 years and 313 days that his team boss Latvala had held as the record. He added the Acropolis Rally and finished fourth.

The 2022 season started with fourth at Monte Carlo, followed by a hat-trick of wins and, after fifth in Sardinia, back-to-back victories. His sixth win of the year, at Rally New Zealand, secured the title. He became the first Finnish world champion since Marcus Gronholm in 2002. In 2023 he did not win until the fifth round, Rally de Portugal, then won two more rallies, and sealed a second title at the Central European Rally with a second place while Evans was out of contention.

After the WRC

Rovanpera signed a multi-year Toyota contract but contested only a partial season in 2024. That year he entered four rounds of Porsche's Benelux Carrera Cup, took three wins and ended fourth, even though he missed two rounds. He tested a Red Bull Racing F1 car at the Red Bull Ring in November 2024, and in 2025 made his endurance debut in the Middle East Trophy. On 9 October 2025 he announced he would leave the WRC at the end of that season for single-seaters. In 2026 he contested the Formula Regional Oceania Trophy for Hitech, and was slated to race in Super Formula with KCMG before withdrawing ahead of the first race after a diagnosis of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. He also tried drifting, winning a round of Formula Drift Japan at Ebisu in 2023 in a Toyota GR Corolla.

Who is Jari-Matti Latvala?

Jari-Matti Johannes Latvala, born on 3 April 1985, is a Finnish rally driver known for an aggressive style that draws comparisons with the late Colin McRae. His 18 event victories in the WRC make him one of the sport's most successful drivers never to win a championship. In 2019 he reached the record for most World Rally starts, 17 years after his debut. Miikka Anttila sat beside him for most of his career, from the 2003 Rallye Deutschland to the 2019 Rally Catalunya. From 2021 he has run Toyota Gazoo Racing's WRC team as team principal, succeeding Tommi Makinen.

Early years

Latvala began driving at eight in a Ford Escort from his father Jari, a rally driver and 1994 Group N national champion, and at ten he practised in an Opel Ascona on a frozen lake. He made his world rally debut at the 2002 Rally Great Britain, aged 17, finishing 17th in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI. By 2006 he was winning the Production Car World Rally Championship class in Australia and New Zealand, and he recorded fourth overall at Rally GB in a Focus WRC, his career best at that point.

Ford, and the youngest winner

In 2007 Latvala drove a full 16-event season for Stobart M-Sport Ford. At Rally GB failure of the windscreen wiper cost him ten minutes on the day's last stage, yet he won ten of the remaining 11 stages under SupeRally rules and finished tenth. For 2008 he joined Ford's factory team as number two to Hirvonen, replacing the retiring Marcus Gronholm. He won the second rally of the year, in Sweden, at the age of 22, becoming the youngest winner in WRC history, beating Henri Toivonen's mark of 24 years and 86 days from the 1980 RAC Rally.

The next year started badly: he went off in three of the first four rallies, and in Portugal he and Anttila rolled 17 times down a steep hill and escaped injury. Latvala admitted he would understand if Ford no longer wanted him. But he won in Sardinia, leading from start to finish ahead of Hirvonen. In 2010 he took wins in New Zealand and Finland and finished second overall behind Loeb after a third place in Wales. In 2012, with Hirvonen gone to Citroen, he became Ford's number one and won in Sweden.

Volkswagen and Toyota

Latvala joined the new Volkswagen team for 2013, citing Ford's decision to end its works programme. He was third in the standings that year and runner-up in 2014, when he won four rallies in Sweden, Argentina, Finland and Alsace behind Ogier, who won eight. In 2015 he won in Portugal, Finland and Corsica but was second to Ogier again. After Volkswagen withdrew, he moved to Toyota for 2017, winning in Sweden, and took a last-round victory at Rally Australia in 2018, his first win in 21 months. In 2020, struggling to find a seat, he ran a privately entered Toyota Yaris WRC in Sweden and Finland with Juho Hanninen as co-driver. In 2023 he made a one-off return at Rally Finland, and in 2026 he won the Olympus Rally in a development programme for Toyota's GR Corolla Rally RC2.

Latvala Motorsport, run with his wife and family, operates from Tuuri. The site holds a museum of cars from his own collection, memorabilia and merchandise, an auditorium that can be hired and a rally simulator, and it is open to the public in summer.

Who is Mikko Hirvonen?

Mikko Hirvonen, born on 31 July 1980, is a Finnish former rally driver who now competes in Rally-Raid. He finished third in the drivers' championship in 2006 and 2007, helping Ford to the manufacturers' title both years, and was runner-up to Sebastien Loeb in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012. Jarmo Lehtinen co-drove for him from 2003 until his retirement in 2014, after Miikka Anttila in 2002.

From Subaru to Ford

Hirvonen took the Finnish Rally Championship's under 2000 cc Group A class in 2002, and in 2003 he joined the WRC in a third Ford entry. After Richard Burns was diagnosed with a brain tumour in late 2003, Hirvonen moved to Subaru in 2004 as teammate to Petter Solberg, scoring points in ten rallies with a best of fourth in Argentina and Australia. With no seat in 2005, he ran a Ford Focus RS WRC 03 two years old as a privateer and took a career-best third at Rally Catalunya. Ford noticed. In 2006, alongside Marcus Gronholm, he won Rally Australia and had six podiums in a row, ending third overall. In 2007 he won in Norway, Japan and Wales and finished third, 17 points behind Loeb.

Close to the title

As Ford's number one from 2008, with Latvala as teammate, Hirvonen won the inaugural Jordan Rally and the one in Turkey. In Wales a roll on stage five dropped him to 44th, but he recovered to eighth, and he and Lehtinen became the first WRC drivers ever to pick up points in every round of a season. In 2009 he tied Gronholm's record points streak of 22 events in Portugal, then won in Greece, Poland, Finland, where it was his first win at home, and Australia. The Australian win came after Loeb, Dani Sordo and Sebastien Ogier were each given one-minute penalties over rollbar irregularities. He led the championship by a point going into the final rally, but a hard landing on the penultimate stage broke his bonnet hinge, and the title went to Loeb.

Hirvonen stayed with Ford through the Focus RS WRC and then the Fiesta RS WRC in 2011. In 2012 he moved to the Citroen DS3 WRC to partner Loeb. His Portugal win was disallowed over irregularities with the clutch and turbo. A winless 2013 brought five podiums and fourth place. He rejoined M-Sport in 2014, took two podiums and three power stage victories and was fourth, behind the Volkswagen trio of Ogier, Latvala and Andreas Mikkelsen. On 6 November 2014 he announced his retirement, just before Wales Rally GB. He went rally raid with X-Raid in a Mini Countryman, finishing fourth in the 2016 Dakar Rally and 13th in 2017.

How do the four WRC drivers compare?