Ott Tanak says that he feels great for returning back to the victories as it has been a long time since he won a WRC event while he explains why Rally Chile was a different challenge for all the drivers compared to other rallies.
Rally Chile has been held a WRC round two times and Tanak is the only WRC driver who won this event as he was victorious with Toyota and M-Sport in 2019 and last weekend respectively. He finished ahead of Thierry Neuville for 58,3 seconds while he stayed out of trouble during the previous week. The only problem he faced was when he lost the hybrid power after a jump and had a spin in Stage 2 which had as a result to lose his lead and to drop to third overall behind Elfyn Evans and Teemu Suninen. However, he managed to increase further his lead on Saturday morning as he was the only driver who followed a different tyre strategy and chose to carry six hard compound tyres. This strategy paid off on the final stage of Saturday morning as all Toyota drivers suffered from rear punctures and the Hyundai duo dropped some seconds after their having one soft compound on the rear. His dominance can be proved by the fact that he won seven from 16 stages in Chile, but the most important thing is Puma's reliability issues disappeared and Tanak returned back to the victorious days since Rally Sweden eight months ago.
"It’s definitely nice to have a positive outcome from a week after what feels like a long time", Tanak said.
"Altogether it is definitely quite close to a perfect weekend.
"It seemed somehow very different from what we have to do normally.
"It was not too much about pure performance at all, it was a lot about management and how to get through the loop, it was a different kind of challenge.
"These positive vibes are always helping so I am sure it’s been a great week for the team".
Photo Credits: M-Sport
Post a Comment