Tanak does not feel fully prepared for home WRC round

While both M-Sport Ford and Toyota Gazoo Racing have been chalking up the pre-event test miles, Tanak's priorities have been elsewhere ahead of the Tartu-based event going live this evening with a short super special stage.

In-between last month’s Safari Rally Kenya and arriving at Rally Estonia, mechanics and engineers at Hyundai have been working hard to try and iron out the issues that have affected the reliability of the I20 N Rally1 at crucial moments at events.

Tanak and his team-mate Thierry Neuville have both been on the receiving end of setbacks and have lost crucial points to various mechanical-related issues since the start of the 2022 season. As a direct consequence, both drivers have gone public calling on their team to toughen up the South Korean supermini.

Asked during the pre-Rally Estonia press conference how work on the car has progressed – and if he felt it will be enough to hand him a second WRC win on home soil – Tanak said: “We have some fights on ourselves, we have been working hard in many areas.

“Overall, we didn’t have the preparation we were hoping for, we cancelled some tests and missed some test days, so not fully prepared.

“This morning [in shakedown] we were on the pace, now we were able to check the data and do some further steps before the rally starts and hopefully still be on the pace for the rally,” he added.

Tanak recorded the fourth quickest time on the shakedown test, with this achieved on his third run alongside Martin Järveoja. As well as local knowledge, the 2019 World Champion hopes the unsettled weather that is forecast will play into his hands, gluing the gravel together and preventing the formation of deep lines and ruts.

“No doubt it’s nice to be on a smooth surface. It has been a long time since we were in Sweden where it was purely about performance and driving on the limit,” he explained. “The weather is playing a big factor here, which will make it a bit more tricky in places. [But the] playing field should be quite equal like this.

“Some places have quite a new surface. In the recce, it looked quite solid and hopefully it stays like this as well. Other than that, there are maybe a few new sections. One was quite long between the trees, but other than that, nothing too different.

“It’s definitely great to be back in Estonia. Once again, the atmosphere is proven to be World-spec. It’s definitely good to have a World Rally Championship round here. I am proud of it.”