Rocky road to success in Turkey
Fortune favoured not the brave but the clever and consistent on the rocky roads of WRC Rally Turkey last weekend. With the mountain and coast roads of Marmaris taking a heavy toll on the WRC machinery, Estonia’s Ott Tanak completed a hat-trick of victories to create a three-way title fight with three rounds remaining.
The Turkish terrain featured tight roads with low average speeds, rockstrewn surfaces and high temperatures in a new event that restored much of the challenge of the Acropolis and Cyprus events from past years to the WRC calendar.
Tanak led home team-mate JariMatti Latvala (Finland) for a Toyota 1-2 ahead of New Zealander Hayden Paddon (Hyundai).
Paddon played a conservative game and was rewarded with his first podium of the year, scoring valuable points for Hyundai in the Manufacturers’ Championship while his teammates suffered delays.
It was a rally of mixed fortunes. Toyota struggled for pace on the opening day with Tanak only 10th after Friday’s opening test stage and unhappy with the handling of his car until setting the fastest time on the last stage of the day and climbing to fifth place.
Title leader Thierry Neuville (Hyundai) and defending champ Sebastien Ogier (Ford) both pushed hard and Neuville led by just 0.3s after the first day with third-placed Andreas Mikkelsen (Hyundai) 2.6s from the lead.
The coastal roads of day two were less rocky than those in the mountains on day one but they did the most damage. Neuville was the first victim, forced to retire after the front suspension on his Hyundai came apart in the first stage.
Ogier took control briefly, but in the next stage a front track control arm broke and the Fiesta wobbled out of the stage.
Ogier and co-driver Julian Ingrassia made a roadside repair advised by teammate Elfyn Evans and former M-Sport driver Henning Solberg.
The world champs got the Fiesta mobile again and for a moment it looked like the deciding items of hardware in a world championship that requires budgets running into tens of millions would be the handful of tie-wraps and a ratchet strap securing the bottom arm of Ogier’s front suspension.
He blitzed the next stage and returned to service for repairs holding fifth place having incurred one minute of penalties. But the hard work was undone one stage later with an uncharacteristic low-speed error which saw his Fiesta beached off the road and wedged by a small tree.
With Mikkelsen losing time with transmission issues, Tanak survived the chaos and worked himself into the lead from Latvala and Paddon.
Paddon’s steady approach was by choice. He was playing a vital backup role to his teammates to make sure he was in place to score Manufacturers’ points for Hyundai and with massive rocks being dragged on the road by the cars ahead on the first day an attacking drive would have been risky.
Sunday proved uneventful for the rally leaders with Tanak, Latvala and Paddon holding position while Neuville and Ogier were back in action to salvage a handful of points.
Neuville grabbed five points in Power Stage and Ogier also gained five — four for second fastest in the Power Stage and one for climbing back to 10th place overall — assisted by Evans taking a 5-minute time penalty and dropping behind Ogier.
It means the three-way fight that looked an outside chance at midseason has become a reality. Neuville leads with 177 points while Tanak has moved to second with 164 points and Ogier has 154 points.
Toyota’s Turkish quinella powered it to the lead in Manufacturers’ championship with 284 points from Hyundai with 279. Ford has slipped back in the title chase with 244 points.
The three-rally run to the end of the season takes the championship to WRC Rally Wales GB (October 4-7) before Spain (October 25-28) and Australia (November 15-18).