Ott Tänak - Future champion?

[mknight]

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.

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?

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.

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.

[Lancia Stratos]

I don't think, when everything is taken into consideration (Red Grey etc), that Tanak took a pay cut to join Hyundai....

[AnttiL]

"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.

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.

[cali]

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.

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.



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[EstWRC]

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.

[Japé]

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?

[Oliverk]

5x 45 minutes

[EstWRC]

I definitely recommend it.

IMO It’s better than the movie itself

[Japé]

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.

[AnttiL]

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"