TANAK OUT TO STUN HOME FANS IN ESTONIA
World championship leader to run Yaris on gravel event in his backyard
World Rally Championship leader Ott Tanak says this week’s Rally Estonia is payback to the fans who have supported him so loyally through his career.
Tanak won the event last season and returns to drive Toyota’s Yaris WRC this week. The local hero will, however, face some serious competition on his home roads with Hyundai fielding two i20 Coupe WRCS for Andreas Mikkelsen and Craig Breen, while Citroen runs a C3 WRC for Esapekka Lappi and Elfyn Evans drives M-sport’s factory Ford Fiesta WRC.
Ahead of the event, Tanak told MN: “Last year I really enjoyed Rally Estonia. We have so many fans from Estonia and they are coming to so many places to support us, it’s really nice that we can bring something back for them.
“Urmo [Aava, Rally Estonia director] and his company have done a great job with this rally and I’m sure it’s going to be nice for us and for the fans.”
As outlined in MN last week, Aava has ambitions beyond Rally Estonia being the perfect warm-up for Rally Finland, but that’s the main reason the big four have all sent a car to Otepaa.
Tanak’s countryman and fellow Estonian rally hero Markko Martin also praised Aava’s work.
“They have done some work with the jumps,” he said. “They’ve made some really good roads and they’ve worked well with the surface to make it a bit harder. OK, maybe it’s not quite the same as the really big, wide roads like Ouninpohja past the yellow house, but there are quite a few of the smaller roads on the Finland route and I think Estonia’s stages are really similar to those.”
In addition to the main fight for Estonian honours, there will be plenty of eyes on Teemu Suninen, who will give M-sport’s Ford Fiesta R5 its competitive debut this week. Suninen will face competition from regular WRC 2 competitors like Takamoto Katsuta (previous specification Ford Fiesta R5) and last year’s surprise Rally Finland WRC 2 winner Eerik Pietarinen (Skoda Fabia R5).
Oliver Solberg, whose recent Rally Liepaja victory made him the youngest ever winner of a European Rally Championship event, will also compete in his Volkswagen Polo GTI R5.
M-sport team principal Richard Millener told MN:
“It was great to get the new
Fiesta R5 out in Ypres, where Eric [Camilli] drive as course car, but Estonia’s the first real test of the car. It’s not going to be easy for Teemu, he hasn’t really done any [development] testing with the car and it’s not easy to step back from the World Rally Car to the R5, and he’s straight into the rally without a test. All that said, be nice if he could win the R5 class!”
Rally Estonia starts on Saturday and runs 15 gravel stages (nine on Saturday, six on Sunday) and 95 miles before finishing on Sunday afternoon.