Ott Tanak may leave M-Sport Ford at the end of this year and join his forces with Hyundai Motorsport again in 2024 after what Thierry Neuville said during his interview.
The Estonian driver parted ways with Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT at the end of 2019 when he became a WRC Champion for the first time in his career and decided to sign a contract with Hyundai in 2020. He remained at the Alzenau-based team for three years (2020-2022) despite the fact that his contract was about to expire at the end of 2023, but he announced that he would end his deal with them prematurely and eventually joined M-Sport Ford for this season. Although Hyundai did not treat him very well last year as the decided to support Thierry Neuville at Acropolis Rally and to sacrifice Tanak who had the most chances to fight for the championship with Kalle Rovanpera in 2022, the Koreans have changed the key people as Cyril Abiteboul and Francois-Xavier Demaison joined them this year. Finally, it must be mentioned that Tanak was not able to be in contention for the 2023 WRC title bid as he has won only two events (Rally Sweden, Rally Chile) and has one podium finish (2nd place in Croatia) so far while the Ford Puma Rally1 suffered from many reliability issues, including turbo and engine problems, which led him to retire from the rally lead many times.
"We have to strengthen the team", Neuville said.
"He’ll probably come back with knowledge of another competing car and that can only help.
"I always said it: he was the toughest team-mate, the hardest to beat.
"It was a reference for me, it gave me the opportunity to surpass myself from time to time".
Photo Credits: M-Sport
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