Finally Ott Tänak has some luck, and at last we might have a battle for the 2022 World Rally Championship.
With three wins from the first four rallies, the title is still Kalle Rovanpera’s to lose, but the Estonian has finally found the form that took him to the 2019 world title.
For a while in last weekend’s Rally Italia Sardinia it looked like the rallying gods were against Tanak again though. He suffered a transmission failure on the third last stage on Friday.
Fortuitously, the following two stages were cancelled, and any time loss was minimised.
Throughout the rally, however, he was totally dominant, winning 10 of the 21 stages – seven more than both his team-mates Dani Sordo and Thierry Neuville.
He appears to be finally gelling with the new i20 Rally1 hybrid, and if that’s the case, then Rovanpera will need to be looking over his shoulder more often than not.
Tänakwas helped by a superior road position in Italy, but he’s now third in the title race and he and the Finn will be on a more level playing field as the season moves forward.
The points gap is still large – 58 points to be exact, so the Toyota man will need to suffer his fair share of misfortune for the title to go any other way.
“I am very happy to take this victory, especially for all the mechanics and people in the team who have put in an incredible effort to prepare for this new generation,” Tanak said.
“It’s been a challenging time, but we have shown that hard work pays off.”
While it was a great rally for Hyundai’s Tänak and third-placed Sordo, it was one to forget for Thierry Neuville, who lost time on the first day with broken transmission, then crashed spectacularly early on day two. It was another costly error and perhaps a reason why he is a five-time title runner-up, rather than a champion in his own right.
“Unfortunately it’s another rally where we’re left thinking what might have been. It’s disappointing, of course, but we’ve continued to push hard, and we’ve been often on the limit,” Neuville lamented.
Toyota had a rally to forget despite Rovanpera and Katsuta finishing fifth and sixth. Esapekka Lappi crashed out of the lead on day two, and Elfyn Evans had mechanical problems that now sees him languishing nearly 100 points from the championship lead.
M-Sport, meanwhile, had a much better outing than they had in Portugal. Craig Breen took a stage win and finished in second place, while the find of the season, Pierre-Louis Loubet, was on the podium early, before eventually finishing in fourth place, his best ever WRC finish.
Breen commented that there is still plenty of speed left in both he and the Ford Puma, which bodes well for the rest of the season, particularly with Sebastien Loeb returning to the fold next time out in Kenya.
Also returning will be Sebastien Ogier for Toyota. Like Loeb, Ogier crashed out of the previous rally in Portugal, but as the winner of the Safari Rally last year, he’ll be expecting big things from his third rally of the year.
The Safari Rally runs in Kenya from June 24 to 26 over 19 stages and 363km of stages.
2022 FIA World Rally Championship for Manufacturers’ Standings
1/ Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team, 200
2/ Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team, 161
3/ M-Sport Ford World Rally Team, 120
4/ Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team NG, 53
Drivers’ Standings
1/ K. Rovanperä, 120
2/ T. Neuville, 65
3/ O. Tänak, 62
4/ C. Breen, 52
5/ T. Katsuta, 47
6/ E. Evans, 39
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