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Ott Tanak has stopped short of saying what his expectations are at Secto Rally Finland, choosing instead to keep an open mind in the build-up to the fastest round on the World Rally Championship calendar.
Tanak scored a hard-earned 6.8s victory on the Gravel Grand Prix twelve months ago when he was a Hyundai Motorsport driver to take his win count at the Jyvaskyla-based meeting to three. He previously triumphed there in 2018 and 2019 before finishing runner-up in 2021.
The former World Champion revealed that he had to overdrive the i20 N Rally1 to stay ahead of the GR Yaris Rally1 of Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Kalle Rovanpera, and based on recent performances, the same approach may well be called for at the controls of his M-Sport Ford-run Puma Rally1.
Tanak had the option of participating in a one-day Finnish national rally last weekend but thought better of it, and chose instead to rely on a pre-event test to get prepared for the next WRC fixture.
After a forgettable Rally Estonia last month where his dreams of a home win were dashed by an engine change that attracted an immediate five-minute time penalty, the event became something of a prolonged seat time exercise.
“Finland generally is much more demanding event than Estonia,” said the 2019 World Champion, who sits fourth in the standings and has gone without a win since Rally Sweden back in February.
“I have enjoyed driving there in the past and we have had some great performances in Finland before. Estonia was very tough, and we couldn’t score the points that we needed from there unfortunately, but we still produced some good pace.
“Our focus is to find the best possible feeling from Rally Finland shakedown, then we just push for the best possible result over the weekend.”
The short turnaround between Estonia and Finland meant a 16-strong team of M-Sport Ford technicians and engineers did not travel back to the UK to re-prep Tanak’s Puma Rally1 and the identical car of team-mate Pierre-Louis Loubet. Rather, they carried this out on location to ensure that everything was ready on time.
For his part, Team Principal Richard Millener said it was important “to praise” his colleagues’ “hard work and dedication” and believes the heartache of Rally Estonia is now a distant memory.
“Everyone was extremely disappointed after Estonia as Ott and Martin [Jarveoja, co-driver] clearly had the speed to deliver a home victory,” he said, “but we have put the disappointment behind us and will carry the positives forward to Finland – an event Ott has won on three previous occasions.
“He has completed a full day of testing, and I know when he gets to Finland his mind will be fully focused on the task in hand,” added Millener.
