M-Sport's Elfyn Evans says his fourth place finish on Rally Ita꧃lia Sardegna was a lot more than he expe๊cted after his "disastrous" start.

The Welshman lost more than three minutes on the opening morning with driveshaft issues leaving him a lowly 💧17th and then in the afternoon he struggled for confidence.

However, he gradually got more in the groove the following day and hauled himself back up the leaderboard, 🍰peaking with a third fastest tim🤪e on the final day.

Speaking at the finish he admitted that the rhythm he had enjoyed at the start of the season 💎had still not fully returned, but he was nonetheless a lot happier.

"After a 🦩disastrous Friday I was really disappointed and finishing fourth then was unthinkable," Evans said immediately after the final sta⛦ge.

"I wish that the rhythm was different on Friday, but we are still here. Not the performance of the year, certainly, but we [still] got some good experience of the whole r🗹ally."

"It's a very unexpected result after the issues we had on Friday," he elaborated back in service. "It's fair to say that we had a diffi🔥cult start for various reasons.

"Obviously we had the issue with the driveshaft on Friday mor🐽ning and then after that I just couldn't💎 seem to get into the flow of it.

"We needed to start again on Saturday and I think it was a fairly solid run. We didn't take any risks or chances but had a good rhythm which was a nice change from the day before! By the end of the day our fifth place was secured and when Mads [Ostberg] encountered problems we moved up another place on Sunday.

"It's been a difficult couple of rallies, but the feeling is gradually coming back and I'm sure we'll be back o𒉰n it in Poland. It's a fast rally so it could be a bit of a shock to the system, but hopefully we can get up to speed and have a good run."