Tänak Takes Podium Result on Tricky Rally Croatia

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M-Sport #ford World #rally Team and the Estonian pairing of Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja finish a dramatic #rally Croatia in a fantastic second overall, they now sit fourth overall, only four points off the lead, in the WRC championship.

Following the tragic passing of Craig Breen shortly before the event, the #rally would be dedicated to the young Irishman's memory with all the crews competing in support of him, his family, friends and supporters.

Friday morning saw Tänak comfortably settling into an early podium position after delivering consistent and committed driving over the first few treacherously difficult Croatian stages.  On return to the service area in Zagreb at lunchtime setup changes were made to help the Estonian feel even more comfortable in the car as he headed out for the afternoon speed tests.

With the weather in Croatia often making already difficult stages even more challenging Tanak would opt to use two wet tyres on SS6 as light rain started to fall, but it would ultimately turn out to be the wrong decision. A 6^th fastest time would see him drop to fourth overall, but to make amends for the wrong tyre choice he would quickly regain his podium position on the very next stage whilst also taking his first stage win of the weekend. At the end of day one the crew were in a confident mood and ready to build on their performance for the rest of the weekend.

Day two would be a tricky day, with a new stage for all and despite a strong start to the day, setup issues would hamper a full charge at attacking for the higher podium places. On SS11 second placed rival Thierry Neuville would leave the road and retire for the day promoting Tänak to second overall. A valiant effort over the rest of the day, including seeing the Estonian claim a second stage win, was not enough and some setup issues meant he was unable to catch the leader Evans, but did increase his gap over third placed Lappi.

Heading into Sunday with a 30.5 second gap to the top spot, Tänak had a big job to do. Ultimately, despite his impressive pace and attacking driving, it wasn't enough to close the gap to Evans so he wisely chose to instead secure the 18 points awarded for the runner up position.

Pierre-Louis Loubet and Nicolas Gilsoul came into the event looking for a consistent result after a tricky start to the season. A measured approach despite a suspension issue and puncture the young Frenchman showed great pace during the seasons toughest pure tarmac #rally. His hard work and determination, despite damaging his suspension early on Sunday morning would see him bring home seventh overall.

In the WRC2 category, #adrienfourmaux and Alex Coria had a fantastic weekend setting fastest stages times and numerous fastest splits, they gave a perfect demonstration of the speed and handling of the Fiesta Rally2. A small throttle issue on Friday meant that an overall win was off the cards, but fighting straight back from this saw an incredible drive through all of Saturday, which was replicated again on Sunday, rounded off with a second fastest time on the Power Stage and a deserving fifth overall in the highly competitive WRC2 series.

Teammate Gregoire Munster and Louis Louka would look for more progression and learning over the weekend, still relatively new to the Fiesta Rally2. A similar throttle issue made Friday difficult for the pairing, but an off-road excursion on SS6 saw them retire for the day. Despite tricky conditions on Saturday and Sunday they got themselves back up to speed and completed another event with valuable experience gained.
 
Richard Millener, Team Principal, said:
"What a hard weekend for us all, the loss of Craig was felt by us all during the #rally but I hope we did him proud with the many tributes to him and a great event played out over the course of the weekend. For us, second place is a really good result. Ott showed some great speed and times in the car, but we still have some work to do to make him more comfortable in certain conditions. I know the team will work as hard as they can on that, but their hard work since the season began has paid off here, so thank you to each and every one of them. Adrien also deserves a mention, what a fantastic drive in the Rally2 proving how good a driver he is and how much speed the car has. I would like to finish by saying a huge well done to the Croatia #rally organisers for all their hard work this weekend."

Ott Tänak, Second Overall, said:
"The car has the pace, we can see that from the times, but the operating window seems very small and it has been difficult for me to understand where the sweet spot of the car is. Up until now the team has been working very hard and I have managed to stay in touch with the competition but we need to continue working hard on finding more so we can keep involved in this exciting battle for the championship. I am happy to be only four points off the lead of the championship and second this weekend is still a very good result along with the two stage wins. The test for Portugal is next week and now my focus turns to preparing as best as possible and working with the team to get us as prepared as possible for the next important event."

Pierre-Louis Loubet, Seventh Overall, said:
"I am pleased with the performance, some places we have been fast, showing the potential is there, but I have missed some consistency. I made a bad tyre choice on Friday losing us time, however on Saturday it went well and we were up to fourth but unfortunately with a couple of issues we dropped to seventh by the end of the event. But, let's keep positive, I know if I can get the consistency back I can finish in the top five or even the podium in the coming events."

Adrien Fourmaux, Fifth Overall in WRC2, said:
"I'm really happy about the weekend and performance of the car. We had a really good time on the power stage, where we scored valuable points for the championship. We got the car going so much better over this weekend, it was a bit tricky on Friday with a mechanical issue where we lost one minute but I was pleased to be back driving fast on Tarmac with no drama, we were really able to push. It was quite hard for all the drivers with all the emotion over Craig's loss. It was a really tough weekend for everyone and it's nice to finish on something positive and have the right feeling with the car going forward for the rest of the championship."

Gregoire Munster, 26^th Overall, said:
"Not the best weekend for us, we had a mechanical issue on Friday which lost us some time. Following that I made a mistake which led to a small off, and then we had a small fire when we restarted the car. Luckily the mechanics were able to repair it so we could go out and grab some more experience on Saturday and Sunday. These kilometres were really important for me to get, as we don't yet have so much mileage with the car, so this gave us some experience on Tarmac which is a really positive point."