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Tanak claims winter rally warm up

By Timothy Neal

Date posted: 6 February 2023

Ott Tanak took out the Estonian Otepaa Talveralli Winter Rally in his first win since returning to M-Sport Ford ahead of round two of the World Rally Championship.

In a bid to get more miles in his Ford Rally1, Tanak and co-driver MartinJarveoja used the rally to tune up for this weekend’s Rally Sweden – the WRC’s only dedicated snow and ice round.

It’s an unusual move for Ford to send their drivers and Rally1 cars to lower tier national rally’s, but in this case, Tanak needs the miles, and the Puma Rally1’s need further work before the WRC season heats up on the calendar’s sustained gravel run.

Tanak dominated the eight stage 110 km race outside of Tartu to win his first rally in a Ford since he won the WRC Saaremaa Rally in 2017 – held on an Estonian island (Saaremaa) off the country’s west coast in the Baltic. 

Crowds gather around to catch a glimpse of 2019 WRC champion Ott Tanak at the Otepaa Talveralli Rally in Estonia

Ahead of the WRC round in Umea where he’ll start in P4, Tanak performed with an average speed of 126 kph, with no reported issues surrounding the car.

Tanak’s first rally on his return to Ford ended in a P5 finish, with the 2019 WRC champion experiencing electrical, power steering, and gearing issues at Monte Carlo.

He showed that the car had the pace to compete, narrowly missing out to Kalle Rovanpera in the final Power Stage by just +0.5s, with the team needing to sort out the car’s gremlins in order for their star signing to compete for the title.

Rovanpera is favourite to take out back-to-back Rally Sweden’s after a strong opening at Monte Carlo where he took a consolidating P2 to kick start his title defence.

Elsewhere, Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi and Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta had tune ups in Finland, where both ended up with costly errors. 

Lappi led for much of the rally before going off road, needing aid from the spectators to finish in P31, whilst Katsuta went into a snow wall trying to make up the time on the i20N Finn, leading to his retirement.

The unique Rally Sweden round on February 9-12 is one of the fastest rallies on the WRC calendar, with drivers often using ice walls to propel themselves around on the dedicated dimple tyres.

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