OGIER FLIES BACK INTO TITLE CONTENTION
TANAK FOCUSES ON RALLY GB FIGHTBACK AFTER TURKEY TURMOIL
Next month’s Wales Rally GB has been electrified by a shock Rally Turkey result, which decimated World Rally Championship leader Ott Tanak’s advantage at the top of the table.
Citroen driver Sebastien Ogier’s victory in Marmaris slashed Tanak’s lead to just 17 points going into Rally
GB – an event where the Frenchman has won five of the last six times.
Tanak told MN: “I want to finish this year in the perfect way, but I guess we know this will come quite hard to win it.”
Toyota star Ott Tanak will put contract negotiations to one side now as he focuses on rebuilding a World Rally Championship lead dented by another technical problem at last week’s Rally Turkey.
The Estonian’s Yaris WRC was halted by a failed ECU on the road section to the second stage on Saturday. Tanak was running seventh, six seconds off a possible fifth place, at the time. The championship leader rescued some points with a resounding powerstage victory on Sunday, but a 33-point gap over Thierry Neuville is now a 17-point advantage over his former M-sport team-mate and Rally Turkey winner Sebastien Ogier.
Tanak told MN: “I have been focused all season on this championship and that doesn’t change. I want to finish this year in the perfect way, but I guess we know this will come quite hard to win it.
“There are people in the background who are working for me and for next year and, obviously, it’s important to get these things fixed. There’s really not much for me to do in that direction, but I won’t be distracted by any of this. People know what I want for next year, but for me I focus on Wales.”
Tanak admitted he was relieved Turkey was behind him, pointing out that a repeat of his 2018 win was looking unlikely.
“To be honest, on this event, we didn’t expect to be the fastest,” he said. “But still, let’s say, with things going normally we would have had more points than we did. At least we got something and now, hopefully, the difficult events are behind us. The rallies coming now are the ones where we have been strong and we’ve had a good performance.”
Ogier’s back (again)
Defending world champion Ogier feared his title tilt could be over if he failed to deliver a big result in Turkey.
“It feels really good to get this result,” he said. “Like I said before the start, we needed this for the championship fight. We were quite behind Ott and it is nice to come back a bit closer. We are still quite some points behind him, but we are still alive. This is a good day for us – for the whole team. It’s such an achievement to get us – and our team-mates in second place – across the line. It’s a relief.”
Ogier was keen, however, not to get swept along in the euphoria – pointing out there was still work to come from the team.
“We win today,” he said, “but not all is right straight away. Of course I’m happy for the weekend – we had a strong and reliable car and the pace wasn’t bad – but we need to keep working hard. We still need to find more pace.
“I think not many changes have happened in these three weeks [since Germany], to be honest. After Germany I had a discussion with the team and I said that it is at this moment we need to stay strong together, work even harder. The team has started to do more and realise we need to make a bigger push. This weekend is not the result of that yet, but it is coming in the right direction to motivate everyone even more. We can enjoy this one now.”
Having suffered at the hands of the season’s roughest rally himself 12 months ago, Ogier admitted he sympathised with his former M-sport team-mate.
“It’s tough for him,” Ogier said.
“But he was not going to score big points here anyway, so maybe it’s better for him to have all his bad luck in the same weekend.”
Neuville’s nightmare
Should Tanak need to talk to anybody about standing roadside in Turkey, watching a championship lead being eroded, Neuville is the perfect candidate. It is what the Hyundai driver did last year. And this year was not much better for him as he slipped to third place in the drivers’ race. Neuville goes to the penultimate European round of this year’s series 30 points behind Tanak, in third place.
Hyundai Motorsport director Andrea Adamo’s not a man to shy away from speaking his mind. In the aftermath of Neuville’s Saturday morning shunt, Adamo was clear when he spoke to MN.
“It’s a matter of fact,” said the Italian. “He had a puncture in Germany and crashed here. It’s not looking well for him. Already before [Turkey] it was not [very good], but now it’s worse.”
Asked if the fact that he was embroiled in a tenth-of-a-second battle with Ogier might offer some mitigation, Adamo replied: “They are paid to push. I told you already in the past, I don’t believe to give advice [to drivers], OK except in certain situations. But when they are close like this, they are supposed to keep up with the others. They are supposed to be race drivers, not taxi drivers.
“It’s easy to misunderstand what I’m going to say – but they are race drivers and they are supposed to be fast and stay on the road.”
Because of Tanak’s problem, Neuville actually gained on the championship leader by three points, but he now faces chasing a 30-point gap down with only Wales, Spain and Australia remaining.
Neuville told MN: “It’s still open. I will go to Wales and attack. This is a rally I like. It’s frustrating, but it’s not finished until it’s mathematically over.”