It’s amazing the difference that 12 months makes.
In 2022, Ott Tänak left Sweden with a second non-score, other than powerstage points, in as many rounds. He had only five points on the board and was already looking out of contention for the World Rally Championship title.
Yet, leaving that same event last week, his fortunes couldn’t be any more different.
Instead, he’s walking away with a rally victory and leads the drivers’ championship by three points. It’s a monumental change in fortunes, and Tänak knows it.
He always hoped that moving to M-Sport would pay dividends for him. Before he even confirmed he’d be joining the team, he said he’d only compete again in the championship if he had a chance of fighting for the title.
But not even he could have imagined his return to M-Sport would have started so well, and he admitted as much to DirtFish.
“It’s a great start. Probably with more than we expected, so it’s fine,” the 2019 champion said.
“Let’s see. For sure we can improve a lot during the year, so it’s up to the guys how fast we can become.
“But the plan is to pick up, so hopefully we can get the things rolling, we can be a bit more competitive.”
What makes Tänak leaving Sweden in charge of the championship even more impressive is the fact that the Puma still isn’t the fastest Rally1 car in the field.
Tänak was rarely the fastest on Sweden’s stages, but he was never far off the pace, and more importantly, he was consistent.
And he believes it’s the fact he can drive the car so consistently that’s enabling him to maximize his results.
“It definitely took a bit of time in the beginning to get myself adapted to the car, and it was a bit challenging,” he said.
“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.”
