Ott Tanak feels he is finally starting to get to grips with his Hyundai i20 WRC and his hoping he can take that feeling one step further with victory on this weekend’s Rally Sardinia.
The Estonian joined Hyundai for the 2020 season in what would turn out to be a pandemic ravaged year, not enabling the sort of seat time to develop an understanding of a new car that a regular season would have offered.
With only seven events taking place last year, as the crews get set to tackle the fifth round of 2021 in just June, this has allowed Tanak to finally get a feel for the i20 on gravel. He showed tremendous speed on Saturday in Portugal, before a rock broke his suspension. But it was apparent that the combination of car and driver was starting to click.
“On Saturday morning I was getting the feeling that I used to get, so we can see the pace is there. It’s coming now. We have a long season ahead and a lot more can happen,” said Tanak.
The last four Rally Sardinia’s have been won by a Hyundai i20, the last time it was won by a non-Hyundai was in 2017 when the Ford Fiesta WRC of a certain Ott Tanak took his maiden WRC victory. So, can he double his island tally?
“We have to see, but maybe it’s looking to the second half of the season. Like I said, I’m getting closer to the feeling and there’s a rhythm coming. I’m sure if we keep progressing like this then we can have a pretty promising second half of the season.”
