Hyundai was already working on Tanak's replacement in case of his departure

The WRC Sporting Director of Hyundai Motorsport, Andrew Wheatley, stated that the team has been working on a Plan B in case of Ott Tanak's departure at the end of this season.

Tanak's name was linked to Toyota for 2026 as there were rumors in the service park for weeks after Kalle Rovanpera's announcement to switch from WRC to SuperFormula. Despite the fact that Tanak was the only driver from Hyundai who was mathematically among the contenders for this year's championship and broke Toyota's domination in 2025. the 2019 WRC Champion confirmed at the end of Rally Japan that he will retire from the sport at the season finale in Saudi Arabia. This means that Hyundai has one seat remaining to fill its driver line-up as it is expected that Adrien Fourmaux and Thierry Neuville will extend their contracts with Hyundai for one more season.

"Absolutely, we always have a Plan B – and you should have a Plan C", Wheatley said before Tanak's announcement.

"As far as we are concerned, we are very happy to have Ott in the team if that is what he wants to do, but if he doesn’t want to do that then we will respect that decision.  

"Obviously, we are having to take everything into consideration, I have been doing calculations and sums and stats tables and understanding performance on rallies to understand what the balance would be if there was a change. 

"One of the challenges we have in the championship is there is not free testing, so you can’t get a driver up to speed quickly. 

"I think we are very clear about the target for next year, which is to be as competitive as we can. 

"It is the last year of Rally1 and we need to make sure we have the best possible performance. 

"When you are looking at the different options, absolutely, you want to bring young drivers into the team because they are full of energy, but we also have to balance that against making sure they are competitive. 

"You need people with either speed or experience or both, but that is not easy. 

"It is a short list of drivers and you are not looking at 20 options, you are looking at a fairly small group and we are in touch with all of them".

Source: Motorsport.com

Photo Credits: Hyundai