ELFYN Evans celebrated his Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team debut with an impressive podium finish on this weekend’s Monte Carlo Rally.

Despite lining up alongside six-time world champion Sebastien Ogier at Toyota and having limited pre-event testing time in his new Yaris WRC, the Dolgellau star twice led and came agonisingly close to becoming the first British winner of the notoriously challenging Alpine classic for more than 50 years.

After four days of gripping action on the icy mountain roads above Monaco, Thierry Neuville scored a famous first ever victory for himself and Hyundai.

The fast finishing Belgian winning the final six speed tests in his hard-charging i20 Coupe to overhaul both Evans and Ogier.

Having been consistently among the see-sawing pace-setters throughout and posting four fastest stage times, ultimately Evans and co-driver Scott Martin had to settle for a close third place, just 14.6 seconds adrift of Neuville and less than two seconds adrift of team-mate Ogier who was denied an unprecedented seventh consecutive Monte Carlo victory.

Encouragingly for the Welshman and as a fillip for the season ahead, it was his best-ever Monte Carlo result and as close as any British driver has come to winning the blue riband event since the famous victories of Paddy Hopkirk and Vic Elford in 1964 and 1968 respectively.

"Overall we had a positive weekend but once you lead a rally your expectations are raised, so I’m a little disappointed as we had the potential to win," said Evans. "We still have some work to do but it’s a solid start to the season."

Nine-time WRC champion Sebastien Loeb was never on the pace of the leaders and finally finished sixth more than five minutes adrift, while new signing Ott Tänak crashed out spectacularly on the second morning with the defending world champion surviving a high speed accident unscathed but with his i20 damaged beyond repair.

After such a rousing start to what promises to be another fiercely-fought series, this year’s World Rally Championship switches to the frozen forests of Sweden from February 13-16 before taking on the gravel roads of Mexico and Argentina.