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Guys, it far to early to surrender.....Tanak will stand at the top on many events this season, remember my words.
But I agree theat Kenya is going to be decisive for him. If in this Africa event he retaires again (and if Seb & Elfyin are again at the top), than it is over.
- 2 remaining rough events (will something break again?)
- 3 tarmac events (where he struggles with the car)
- 2 events where he does great
Not a good outlook.
Problems is that Ogier/Evans can be TOP3 in every rally, so Ott will not benefit 20p/rally
I believe the moment ogier was confirmed at toyota, everyone should have been scared. The best driver in the best car, it could lead to levels of VX dominance.Quote:
Originally Posted by er88
as for a fan, its the most depressing season since 2012, as last season was short i would even say seasons, although last year wasnt half as bad as this.
while in 2012 it was his fault, not listening what was told to him and going flat out all the time, then this and last year too much mechanical/technical troubles. Of course theres his own faults too, like going flat out in Estonia with the frustration he had from previous 3 rounds and ending the rally so early, the decision to take only on spare in Monte. But the biggest and most of the points he lost in Portugal, Sardinia and Kenya.
my hope is now turned into next year cause it seems this bad run doesnt seem to end this year. Really waiting to see how the new car will come out with his influence, he helped to develop the new Rally2 car and Huttunen has only good things to say about the handling.
The only thing i hope still from this year is that there wont be any issues in Finland, i really wanna see battle between him and the Toyotas without any issues.
It's sad to hear the bitter comments at stage end interviews or between finish line and time control. Like at the end of Ypres power stage "these two years have been quite complicated".
Have the same feeling as EstWRC. I'm slowly getting back this anxiety that I had during his early years. Unbelievable splits and then Becks saying in Rally Radio "Oh no, Tänak has stopped". Then it was because of some accident, now because of some technical issues.
Yesterday I was a bit daydreaming and thinking, would he now be 3x times champ, if he would have stayed in Toyota. Car that is like a tank, was well developed for Tanak's driving style... But we will never know. I'm sure Tänak made the decision that was best for him at that time as he just wanted to drive and maybe even more that his word would mean something. If he wanted something changed the way he likes it, then all the team would be behind him. If I interpreted his answer correctly in 2019? interview to Betsafe, then he even took a pay cut.
Hopefully, next year(s) would be more satisfying to watch and enjoy this talent of a generation.
yes you are right, he even took a pay cut while moving to Hyundai. The relationship was just so bad between him, Tommi and especially Mia. Im sure he wouldnt have moved if they wouldnt have been there or he had maybe even stayed if he wouldnt have known they arent there anymore after 2020?
im quite sure he would have been champ last year with the Toyota which now suddenly is bulletproof :D should have been in 2018 too
but shoulda, woulda doesnt count anything.
Tommi was "eliminated" at the end of 2020, a year after Tänak made his choice. However, it can be questioned whether the Toyota bosses eliminated Tommi because it was his fault that Tänak left the team.Quote:
Originally Posted by EstWRC
Another interesting if-sequence is that if Tänak had stayed at Toyota, would Ogier have left Citroen at the end of 2019, and would the team have continued in 2020 with the updated car?
Do you guys think Tänak and Märtin burned the bridges to Toyota, or would they be able to return to the team now that Tommi is not there anymore?
Another interesting thing is how early Tänak and Neuville signed for Hyundai this year, and right after that the cars started breaking in the rough rallies...would they sign now anymore?
as i have heard and understood, Ogier started to chat with Tommi after Germany 2019...i think this is also the reason why Tommi waited with the contract renewing with Tänak, as you remember Ott said already in spring 2019 he wants the contract done by Finland and in that Betsafe interview he said his first choice was to stay in Toyota.
Tommi getting kicked was definitely in.large part due to Tanak leaving. The optics at end of 2019 were just terrible for Toyota. In Spain most of the talk was about Tanak leaving, not about Toyota winning and then they lost manu title as well, due in large part to Tommi hiring Meeke.Quote:
Originally Posted by AnttiL
Yes I do believe Ogier would have stayed and Citroen continued.
I think the Japanese will remember and not hire Tanak unless he is massively better than anyone else at that point.
Neuville would sign anyway, Tanak might consider MSport.
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"Everyone" wondered if Tanak will have problems with Hyundai and sadly it came true in all the bad ways. Lately it also seems that he is much more frustrated than 'business as usuall" Neuville.
Note that Tanak himself saw Loeb, Mikkelsen and Paddon struggling i Hyundai, but said that after Neuville in GB 2019 he believed Hyundai was good so he felt ok to switch.
I don't think, when everything is taken into consideration (Red Grey etc), that Tanak took a pay cut to join Hyundai....
I was expecting a big rivalry to happen between these two hot heads (with Adamo as a third one), but I guess it hasn't happened because Tänak hasn't been able to fight with Neuville.Quote:
Originally Posted by mknight
In terms of points and championship campaign - yes, true. In terms of speed and wins - no, or it depends how you look at it it's quite equal IMHO. Remember Ypres was just the 2nd win for Thierry since Monte 2020! Actually speedwise on tarmac Thierry has been better, but on loose surface and specially on faster stuff Ott has been faster while Thierry has been outperforming on rougher events. So far both of them have been let down by technical and other issues so we can't get the whole picture. Specially Tänak's Saturday mornings have been devastating.Quote:
Originally Posted by AnttiL
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yeah i agree that on tarmac Thierry is faster and on gravel Ott is faster but no surprise there for me. Apart from his 3 wins on Rally Germany for Ott i have always considered Neuville better tarmac driver than Ott.
After 1 year and 7 months they both have 2 wins each, but they both have missed many more, especially Ott this year with let downs.
I havent looked the statistics now after Ypres but after Estonia Ott had 35 stage wins, just 3 less than in 2019 after the same amount of rallies, the year when he was really dominating. He was also leading in the "stages lead" classification having led for 32 stages this year, actually both him and Ogier had 32. Huge contrast compared to last year.
Noticed only now that there is extension available for Ott Tänak - The Movie, called The Series. It would be very nice to rent it, but https://netikino.ee web page does not tell how long (in minutes) the series together will be. Of course the longer the better, but since there seems to be set rental limitation that you need to complete series watching in 72 hours, so it would be nice to know how much time allocation would be needed to complete the series in time. Any tips? Thanks.
https://netikino.ee/otttanak_themovie_series?
5x 45 minutes
I definitely recommend it.
IMO It’s better than the movie itself
Watched it last night with one go, couldn't stop. Naturally not any big surprises for those who have seen the movie or follow the WRC, but the series is very well done, the edit, feeling and so on, good production crew for sure, and good look for behind the scenes. Definitely recommend it and will watch it again after some months. It would be perfect if they could had continued this series longer to following years from 2018, but understandably it costs. Hopefully there will be still a sequel done, maybe film crew could get some help for additional filming e.g. from Estonian team personnel.
https://www.rallit.fi/ott-tanakin-pi...-kohupaatosta/
Oleg Gross, long time supporter of Tänak, says about Tänak skipping Monza in an Estonian magazine Ärileht
"We only heard about it by then (probably referring to when it was announced?). There was lots of opinions and questions in the air about why he skipped the event. In the end it didn't make any sense anymore to drive because everything was decided already."
"Ott is also building his own house so he wants to spend more time with his family"
There wasn't anything written about this and I think something was lost in translation. Vice versa, when asked about how much does he talk with Ott, he said "We are good family friends and my son Georg talks with him often. Everything is fine. Ott is also fine."Quote:
Originally Posted by AnttiL
I tried to understand what could the writer mean by this and the only logical thing would be the leaving of Adamo. Then Oleg Gross said that "Sometimes things happen very suddenly. Adamo's departure was very unexpected."
again a very good interview with his sponsor Betsafe, like two years ago but unfortunately no subtitles again, at least at the moment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtVEwxlp5_8
Like always with him, he doesnt go into that details with the answers
- says the COVID situation hit them at the bad time in the beginning of 2020, cause there was a lot work needed to be done (he means with the car as i understand) and the fact that you can test only one day now and other restrictions
- after the Arctic test in Finland, he was rather pessimistic but they found the solution basically at the end of the Otepää Winter rally, found something with suspension.
- always felt bad with the car on tarmac rallies. The car was homologated in the way that it wasnt possible to change it (the way he wanted). They tried a lot of things during the year but never found the window where it worked for him. Says the problem also was that the car was designed by the people who arent in the team anymore, so you couldnt even ask what was the initial design for.
- they did a step back for Rally Estonia after the many breakdowns in a row, but that reduced the speed again. Now afterwards says it wasnt the right idea to push so hard in the beginning of the rally and have punctures but admits he was basically pissed off because of previous breakdowns and that the tyre came off the rim on previous stage.
- Thierrys crash cost them duration tests in South-France and they havent tested on gravel yet with the final car
- Signed the contract that early because if you dont, then you cant see any info at all, let alone test the car
- The guy asks if Loriaux said some funny words about the first version of the car but Ott has a cheeky smile and doesnt answer. Loriaux came when they started to build the second car
- The launch of the car was delayed because of the chip problem and new engineers coming to the team but all those things took time cause of COVID situation in the world
- Says that R5-s could be faster on some parts of the stages this year, maybe even faster on whole stage but all depends of the stage characteristics and the surface
- interestingly says that in the big picture the new car actually doesnt have much less aero than the previous one, it looks like that but because the floor now is sleek and that causes effect like with F1 car and it works
- doesnt get the decision to go back to stick gearshift, says that there is parts on stages where you dont want to have only one arm on the steering wheel + the possible problems with the gearbox
- the coming of hybrid brought extra workers also to the team because you need to do simulations to know where to use the extra power and etc. it will be done also during the rallies. And laughs that the simluation actually costs a lot although FIA wanted to reduce costs
Thanks, very interesting details
as for 2020, they had a big meeting after Mexico and thought of lots of things to improve the car. But all testing was banned until summer.
Cool new information and he looks physically very well prepared for new season!
A very good interview. Some other things that caught my eye
- Was asked about the missing of the final rally. Says that him not going wouldn't change the championship but would save a life of someone at home. It was important to be at home for a month and be a father for his family
- Says that Adamo’s departure was very unexpected for everyone. Says it was not related to his profession/work life and was related to his personal life. Doesn’t say anything more about it and says that if Adamo will talk about it in the future then we will know.
- Praises new roll cage and says good direction for the safety
- Also said good things about MSport as they have always prepared and started well if the regulations change. But doesn’t think anything about the testing videos of other teams as we don't know what is the purpose of the test, what are the conditions, have they remembered the stage etc.
- Was asked if they can drive and will they drive local rallies with Rally1 car. Ott said that if the local federation allows then yes, they can drive but as it is so early in the season and they don't have many cars then during the first year it will be difficult. But I personally felt that there is interest as testing is needed.
- After Thierry's crash, they didn't have any car to use. Cars were already being built before the crash and in the end they used the car that went to FIA for homologation and after FIA did its job, then they could start testing again. And the same car will also now go to Monte so they can't crash it anymore (they will have 1 more test before Monte).
- Ott doesn't go along with the new FIA president hype in a sense that everything he is saying is good and true but wants to see if the same enthusiasm is there after 6 months. But mentions that after a very long time, the top of FIA is not so much French people based anymore.
- Was asked about the problem especially on the final days of the rallies where nothing is happening and everyone is waiting for the Power Stage. Doesn't fully agree with the idea that we should start giving out points for every stage as the guy who leads the championship doesn't have a chance during the Friday stages. And also understand why Seb was always crying about it.
- Thinks the key point during the first year will be who reacts fastest to their weak(er) points.
- Also praised Hyundai team several times as team is doing a very good job. For example if they had problem with durability then they left no stone unturned and were always looking for more and also now, when they don't have team principal then feels maybe they are even more united.
yeah thanks for writing more, it was a long one so i didnt remember all of it. i think i have to watch it again some time
No problem! There was a lot of info to unpack and I think if you would watch it one more time, you would get more points out of it.
Was he asked if he is retiring? 58 minutes of enthusiastic chat says it all.
No and there weren't any hints from his answers that he is thinking about it. Rather I got the impression that he is satisfied with the work that they have done and is reasonably eagerly waiting for the season to start so he can see where they are. Car feels strong and more durable, feels that it can be modified more (compared to old) and some calmness resonated from his answers.Quote:
Originally Posted by WRCStan
I will add this about 2017-2021 car as Ott said that the car's base foundation was designed improperly (at least for him) and the perfect operating window was so narrow. He tried to save or improve as much as they could but for instance on tarmac he didn't felt good with the car at all.
He mentioned few times that how he operates or wants the car to be wasn't matching the i20 at all. He was happy that for the new car's design engineers have ironed out the mistakes of the old car. When asked if maybe he could've used engineers knowledge more during 2020-2021, Ott's reply was a bit shocking to me as he said that there was no original car' s engineers left in the team and thus no specific information available.
I must give huge props for the interviewer (Kalev Kruus), he is every time properly prepared, asks questions which are more advanced and looks into more details. He is huge rally fan himself. I really miss it even on the WRC and AllLive as well. He is a no bullshit journalist and imho we need more guys like him be it on local or world stage. Very enjoyable interview.
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The big (seemingly unasked) question is why he signed for Hyundai and how he views the decision now.
Loeb was saying the same things about the car (particularly on tarmac) a year before, Mikkelsen a year before that again. Both had drastic drops of performance on tarmac.
Yet Tanak thought that he would make it work?
Lessons learned about overconfidence after 2 years of career "lost"?
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Other than that the interesting bit is that they didn't test the new car on gravel at all.
We all know why he left Toyota, nothing to do with your called "overconfidence"
Contracts are never that simple. It's not just about finding the perfect car for the upcoming season. I think it was simple as being in a dead end at Toyota and M-Sport obviously out of question. You have to make compromises and maybe he was already thinking beyond the current WRC era? And like we saw he made more stage wins in 2021 than anyone else, it's not like the car suited him especially bad, although I'm quite sure that in a Toyota, he would have won at least one of 2020 and 2021 titles if not both, even against Ogier in the same car.
His own words were that when he saw Neuville fighting with him in GB 2019 he got convinced that the Hyundai is a winning car and (finally?) decided to leave.Quote:
Originally Posted by cali
Surely some reflection on that would be in order.
Don't buy that he was thinking about 2022. Specially after his talk about "having the title chance now" in Toyota in 2018.Quote:
Originally Posted by AnttiL
As you know at Hyundai he was often pushing.even when not completely happy with the car. (Monte 2x, Mexico 20, Estonia 21, Spain 21.., not to count the punctures in important moments).
Resulted in stageiwns but not many points ( see how many stagewins are from Estonia this year).
He was talking about using the title chance in 2018 yes, but he got the title in 2019. We know that he signed for Hyundai before Catalunya was finished, but the title was essentially in his pocket that year already. I would say the decision was easier to make after he got at least one title for his career. And at the same time we remember how Toyota was breaking down all the time for him (remember Sardinia power stage), like Hyundai started to do in 2021 while that behaviour stopped for Toyotas!Quote:
Originally Posted by mknight
I would say it's more down to the car breaking in Portugal and Sardinia. Estonia was his own fault, yes.Quote:
Originally Posted by mknight
I would say Monte 2020 and Mexico 2020 mistakes were due to him trying to go with same driving style as Toyota but it didn't work out with Hyundai, especially in Monte (and it was a new stage anyway, a very very fast section unlike anything in the previous years)
Estonia and Spain were already frustration after having lost the title (like he said in the interview).
He won a lot of stages in Estonia in super rally, but he would have won as many, had he been leading the event.
My point is:
- He didn't go to Hyundai to get 3rd and 5th place in championship (and only 2 rally wins). It is very likely he would have done better in Toyota.
- The "car issues" were quite known by the time he signed. With 3 to 4 drivers suddenly struggling in the car (Loeb, Mikkelsen, Paddon and partly Sordo (from tarmac specialist to "slow gravel" specialist))
=> He was confident he (and the team) would make the car work and they did not.
= overconfidence, just like Loeb had when he signed for Hyundai at end of 2018 or like Ogier had when he signed for Citroen in C3
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In retrospective, if he knew how it would turn out in Hyundai would he stay at Toyota? / Was it really impossible to stay?
To me it seems he was frustrated at two issues in Toyota
1) bad atmosphere in the team, especially the bosses
2) car breaking all the time
Maybe he saw developing Hyundai as a challenge that was more interesting than continuing the same way at Toyota? In the end he managed to develop Hyundai on gravel to be similar as Toyota in 2019 (capable of winning on slow and fast gravel rallies, but prone to technical failures), but not improve the tarmac handling (like he said in the interview, because of decisions that couldn't be rectified with homologation jokers).¨
Also there's the story that Dani Sordo invited Tänak into his hotel room during some 2019 rally. I need to recheck this story but IIRC this is where Adamo met Tänak for the first time. Maybe Tänak felt that he could make the car work for title fight since Thierry was able to do so, and also Sordo managed the car well on gravel and tarmac.
And once again, contracts are not as simple as just picking the best car at some moment. Cars develop constantly and the car that is best now might not be best next year etc.
I want to believe him but I think he still attended some tests just before and/or after Monza?Quote:
Originally Posted by flat_right
He also got a big fat contract and Redgrey running the wrc2 Hyundais.
So not quite as cut and dry as either "he was overconfident/ or he hated the Toyota atmosphere". Lots of reasons combined would've resulted in him switching teams, including the above.
There were a hell of a lot of people on here, including myself, who were sure it wasn't a good move from a purely sporting sense, and that's been the case. He'd probably be a triple world champion by now had he stayed at Toyota (as Ogier wouldn't be in the Toyota had Ott not left the team).