The WRC clock is ticking for Ott Tänak

Estonian magazine Postimees published an article discussing the WRC options for Estonian hopeful, WRC podium winner and multiple national champion Ott Tänak. World Rally Blog’s friend and Estonian correspondent Karli Pikk took some time to translate the main bits and put together this post. Read on.

Lots of work going on to get Tänak back into WRC

«If Tänak misses at least one more season in the big league, then his hope of any career in it is gone,» says Georg Gross, client and main sponsor of Ott Tänak.

In the last interview that Postimees did with Tänak, he said that contesting local rallies has been a big learning curve for him, because he had to lead a team and, at the same time, contest rallies in an old Group-N Subaru Impreza. But he said that he can’t do it forever, because you’ll eventually lose all your speed and motivation whilst grinding smaller rallies.

Tänak’s supporters are convinced that the 2012 season, which was quite unsuccessful due to constant rushing during rallies, has, from then on, given him no space for mistakes.

Everyone is sure about one thing though: there’s no point in contesting one or two rallies in a WRC car, that’s why the talk is around contesting seven rounds in the WRC2 category. It’s been told that the eventual cost would be around 700 000 EUR, and that they are about 250 000 EUR short of their goal.

The car preferred for driving would be an R5 spec rally car. Compared to the Group-N car, it’s a real rally car, which can be used to fight for top 8 positions, sometimes even in top 6.

Currently, the only R5 car is outed by Ford, but in the future, there’ll also be Peugeot, Citröen and Škoda. So, there’s lots to choose from, right?

The most important part is that Tänak should be able to cooperate with a professional team who can offer a great car, service and the ability to do pre-event tests. The downside of the 2012 season was that there was no pre-event testing and having to compete all the time. They only got to test a couple of times.

Tänak also said that the time for finding a perfect solution is running out and that they’d like to enclose this issue by the end of November. It would enable them to perfect the plans and make themselves more confident of the season ahead.

Specialists say that the way Tänak handled his local national season in 2013 shows how mature he has gotten during that time. He has always stayed on the road whilst driving on the very limits of his Group-N Impreza.

In conclusion, Tänak himself has said that the season has been very stressful and nerve wrecking. However, the way he made it through the season is giving lots of hope towards the future.

Source: http://sport.postimees.ee/2442476/tanaku-mmile-aitamise-nimel-kaib-kova-too
Karli Pikk on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Karlip1
Photo: Vladislav Maschl – Rally-mania.cz

);