The Welshman took a commanding win after 21 stages, beating Hyundai’s Ott Tanak by 1:09.9s at the end of 385km.

It’s the second straight rally win for Evans after triumphing in Sweden and it gives him the largest points margin in WRC history after three rallies.

Tanak was initially the man to beat on Friday. By SS8 he’d carved out a 46-second lead over Evans, but that was quickly whittled away when the Estonian suffered a driveshaft failure.

Evans never conceded the lead of the rally thereafter. From SS9, he grew an 11.3-second lead over Kalle Rovanpera to more than a minute by the midday service on Saturday.

Rovanpera suffered suspension damage on SS15 that dropped him from second to fourth and gave Tanak second place. The Finnish driver ultimately had to retire on the final day during SS18 with an electrical issue.

For Evans, it marked his 11th overall win in the FIA World Rally Championship

“It’s amazing to have won this rally,” said Evans.

“It’s not quite sunk in fully yet but the Safari Rally is a special event to win.

“A huge well done to the team, who work very hard to give us an amazing car, and I’m proud to be a very small part of Toyota’s great history on this rally.

“It’s been a massively demanding weekend, probably the most extreme Safari we’ve seen since we’ve been coming here, and the weather added an extra twist on Saturday.

“It was not easy to manage the final day, having quite a big lead and needing to bring it home.

“There was the temptation of extra points to play for on Sunday, but in the circumstances it was important to get the car to the finish, and I’m very happy at the end of it.”

Thierry Neuville completed the podium for Hyundai, 3m32s off the lead. Sami Pajari was fourth for Toyota ahead of the leading Ford driven by Gregoire Munster.

Second place finisher Tanak conceded his hopes were dashed after the driveshaft failure.

“Really happy with the result today,” he said.

“A difficult and demanding weekend, but we are happy to bring both cars safely home on the podium.

“Our chances of victory went on Friday, but after that we kept it clean and now we’ve scored strong points on Sunday.

“There’s a lot of positives to take from this weekend.

“Really thankful to the team and the mechanics for keeping us in the game, there was never an easy service so a massive thank you to them.

“The cars were really put on the limit but the team has improved the Hyundai i20 N Rally1 and its reliability – we’ve been moving in a really good direction since Friday.”

The WRC returns Rally Islas Canarias in Spain on April 24-27.