What was Tanak's mindset for Sweden that worked in favor of him?

Ott Tanak says that his victory in Sweden was an emotional one and admits that he did not know what to expect before the start of the rally, but his target was to stay close to his rivals.

The Estonian driver claimed his first win of the season in Sweden last weekend and put M-Sport Ford at the highest place of the podium after 13 months. Despite the fact that he was the fastest driver only in one stage of the rally, he managed to take back the lead from Craig Breen at the end of Saturday as the last one suffered from a puncture on the afternoon. In comparison with Rallye Monte Carlo, it seemed that Tanak was feeling more comfortable with his new car and was closer to his rivals' times while the only serious problem he faced was when he had a front left delaminated tyre was in Stage 14, but luckily he was near the end of the stage and did not lose so much time.

"It was a good win", Tanak said. 

"It was a bit of an emotional one. 

"There was a bit of – how do you say? –tension as well over the weekend. 

"We came to the rally actually without, I wouldn’t say expecting too much but actually we were not expecting anything. 

"We didn’t know what to expect. 

"We just came here and just had to see what can we do. 

"The first day went quite OK, we were not so far away and then from there we tried to manage our pace and push the other guys.

"It definitely took a bit of time in the beginning to get myself adapted to the car, and it was a bit challenging. 

"But I would say already by Saturday I understood what I needed to do to do some good times. 

"Let’s say we were never really winning stages, but we were always there and it seemed like our strength this weekend was we were keeping our average pace high and every stage we were able to be close to whoever was winning the stage. 

"It was just that the other guys were going a bit better.

"On Sunday morning we continued in the same rhythm we finished on Saturday and we had done the previous two days. 

"I knew I didn’t have too much extra to give, but for the morning this was enough. 

"In this kind of situation it is always the morning loop that is going to decide which way the gap is going, and let’s say we were lucky it was growing. 

"So after this we could manage a bit already".

Photo Credits: M-Sport