By Paul Evans

A patch of black ice on a high-speed corner three miles into Saturday’s tenth stage caused Elfyn Evans to crash out of Rallye Monte-Carlo.

Several other drivers had near misses at the same corner, but Evans wasn’t so lucky as the icy verge pulled his M-Sport Ford World Rally Team’s Fiesta WRC off the road, down a steep embankment and into the undergrowth – ripping a rear wheel clean off.

Evans and new co-driver Scott Martin had been holding a very strong sixth place, and began Saturday’s stages just 29.8 seconds adrift of a podium position. But it was to be a cruel morning, with a minute lost with a puncture on SS9, before the rally ending crash on SS10.

“There was a pretty straight forward left-hander that’s been around for a number of years. I didn’t approach it any differently to how I usually would, but it seems as though the grip levels were particularly low,” said Evans.

“Maybe there was some black ice as a few cars got caught out, but they were a lot luckier than us. There was quite a steep bank with some trees on the outside, the car got dragged down, and that’s where our Rallye Monte-Carlo came to the end.

“Everyone comes to a rally with the best intentions, and it definitely wasn’t part of the plan to start the year on the bad note. All of our attentions are now fully focused on the next event and we’re looking forward to getting back on it in Sweden.”

Evans’ former team-mates Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia won Rallye Monte-Carlo for the sixth consecutive time, on their return event with Citroen. The defending World Rally Champions finished just 2.2 seconds ahead of Thierry Neuville/Nicolas Gilsoul (Hyundai), which is the closest finish in Rallye Monte-Carlo history.