World Rally Championship: Japan Rally winner Sebastien Ogier reduces Elfyn Evans’ lead ahead of the Saudi Arabia final

Evans held a 13-point lead over both Ogier and Rovanpera at the event in Toyota City.

However, the Finnish driver’s hopes took an early hit, taking a backseat for more than five minutes on Friday after he suffered damage to his rear suspension after colliding with a barrier.

Evans started slowly, finishing sixth on the opening stage, but took back-to-back wins on Friday and a strong sequence on Saturday morning to move up to second, just 1.4 seconds behind leader Ogier.

The Frenchman responded with a dominant performance on Saturday afternoon, which continued as he was also the quickest driver through the final day’s six stages – including adding five bonus points with a win in the final extra-power stage.

“It’s clearly a perfect result,” said Ogier, who is aiming to equal Sebastien Loeb’s record number of world titles with nine.

“It was a challenging weekend because after the rain today nothing was certain, it was the start of a new rally this morning.

“Now, let’s move on to the next one. This has been a perfect weekend for us to come back so soon.” [to Evans] “And let’s hope the latter isn’t a lottery.”

Toyota Gazoo Racing has already secured its fifth consecutive World Rally Championship title and now secures a top-three finish in the Drivers’ Championship.

However, it looks like Rovanpera will finish third in his final rally season before turning to a track racing career.

“It’s definitely not the weekend we wanted to have, but sometimes it’s like that,” the 25-year-old Finn said.

“Just a little inconsistent with the results this year.”