Home hero Tanak elates Estonia to reawaken WRC from its slumber

As the dust settled on Rally Estonia, the fourth round of this year's FIA World Rally Championship, reigning champion Ott Tanak and co-driver Martin Jarveoja received a rapturous reception after claiming their 13th WRC career victory and their first for Hyundai in front of an adoring, impassioned crowd of fellow countrymen and women.

The scenes were also joyous for rally fans around the world who had been starved of their sport for almost six months and were treated to an event worth savouring. The local heroes put on a masterful display, while Rally Estonia felt as though it had been on the calendar for years. Pieced together in just two months from a standing start, the fact that Rally Estonia happened at all is testament to the collaborative skills of its event organisers, the FIA and the local authorities. In return they got a day and a half's scintillating entertainment and a result that raised the rafters in a year of global gloom.

The WRC was due to mark its 600th points-scoring event back in April, until Rally Chile was cancelled due to political unrest and the next contender, Rally Argentina, was wiped out in the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus this towering landmark was achieved 20 weeks later than planned, on a different continent and in a country that the series had never visited before. All of these tribulations were swiftly forgotten, however, during a safe, successful and incredibly meaningful weekend as Estonia became the 33rd nation to host the WRC.

With only four rounds remaining on the dramatically changed schedule in 2020, every point won and lost has grown in magnitude. Arriving in Estonia, three drivers had each won one of the three pre-COVID rounds - Hyundai's Thierry Neuville on the Monte Carlo Rally, and Toyota men Elfyn Evans in Sweden and Sebastien Ogier in Mexico - all of which meant that the title fight remained wide open between the works teams when they regrouped in Tartu.

On Friday evening the ceremonial start was held within the bubble of the service area before crews drove to the parkland outside the perimeter for a 1.2km spectator stage. A total of 16,000 tickets had been sold for the entire event and it felt like a packed house as points leader Ogier ended six months of silence and launched himself and co-driver Julien Ingrassia into the WRC's 'new normal'.

The Frenchman appeared relatively tentative in his approach, but as the rest of the field threw down their markers it became clear that his speed had been there in abundance. Among the frontrunners, only Neuville really attacked the tortuous little stage, spending most of his time peering through the side windows and dropping 1.5 seconds in the process.

In the end, only one driver would match Ogier's time and that was M-Sport's Esapekka Lappi, who shared the overnight lead. It would prove to be the solitary highlight of the Finn's weekend.

Saturday provided the first and only full day's running, which resulted in a 10-stage marathon that began before most of the rally fans had gone to bed from the previous night. On the 13-mile opening test, Toyota's teenage rookie Kalle Rovanpera thundered up to the top of the leaderboard as the works cars all crowded Lappi's M-Sport Ford Fiesta out of the top six.

Rovanpera's morning glory was short-lived, however, as he suffered a puncture on the following stage that not only required a new wheel, but also saw flailing rubber carve some valuable aero equipment off the right-rear corner of his Yaris WRC. It was to be the first of many such issues that would affect the field as they got to grips with Estonia, which may look very much like neighbouring Finland, but where the terrain would spring many unwelcome surprises upon the unwary.

Tanak knows all the foibles of the event like nobody else, and arrived as the only three-time winner in its 10-year history. His knowledge and experience was combined with that of team-mate Craig Breen, who had competed on the event four times, and this gave Hyundai a significant advantage that was swiftly capitalised upon. The massed ranks of Hyundai i20 Coupes duly swept to the top of the leaderboard on SS3, with Tanak leading super-sub Breen, while Neuville slotted into third.

The quartet of Toyotas were in formation behind them. Championship leader Ogier's road-sweeping position worked in his favour for once, as he was able to skim over the ruts and rocks that became very evident with each set of tyre tracks on the stages. Evans looked deeply uncomfortable but hung on to Ogier's times gamely as they pulled clear of Toyota's protege and former F3 racer Takamoto Katsuta in sixth and the recovering Rovanpera in seventh.

It is no great exaggeration to suggest that Rally Estonia could prove to have been the watershed moment in Tanak's time at Hyundai. He assertied himself early on, and was rewarded by the end of the first full day with a teasing glimpse of the 2020 title

Ogier went so far as to win a stage from first on the road, but soon his road-sweeping duties were done as the order was switched after the midday halt. Although he added another stage win on SS7, the Frenchman's challenge was blunted by tyre problems, compounded by a mysterious lack of traction out of slow corners. All the Toyotas struggled with similar issues, while Neuville won the last of the morning's stages and began to make gentle progress towards Breen in second place. The Belgian never expected to match Tanak's pace on home soil, but was keen to take points from Ogier and Evans if possible, which may have meant using part-time team-mate Breen as a buffer.

On the second run through the Prangli stage, however, it became apparent that the road surface had been royally churned up by the massed ranks of WRC and R5 machinery. Neuville's Hyundai was thrown off-line in a fast left-hander, the right-rear of his car emerging from the long grass dragging its wheel and suspension assembly behind it.

"I tried to recover it and unfortunately there was something on the outside which damaged the wheel," Neuville dejectedly reported. "We managed to get to the end of the stage but we knew this would be the end." The fact that Ogier won the stage on which Neuville went out doubtless added salt to his wounds.

Tanak won SS8, and then it was Breen's time to shine for Hyundai. Freed from the spectre of having to take one for the team if Neuville had still been running, he celebrated his emancipation by claiming the fastest time through both SS9 and SS10. "It's so much fun driving the car and I'm trying not to think about it!" he fizzed, going so far as to describe feeling 'like a superhero' while flying over the jumps. With the steady, encouraging sound of Paul Nagle's note-reading in his earpiece, Breen savoured every second of this renaissance and clearly relished every moment of hurtling along at 200km/h between the brooding pines.

As Breen cheerfully rode shotgun, rally leader Tanak clearly felt the momentum in the team moving behind him after Neuville's exit. It is no great exaggeration to suggest that Rally Estonia could prove to have been the watershed moment in Tanak's time at Hyundai. He assertied himself early on, and was rewarded by the end of the first full day with a teasing glimpse of the 2020 title.

"I've been pushing for a couple of stages, you know, just to make some gap but this afternoon, especially the middle stages, got really rough so I know I can't risk anything," he said. "I need to definitely come through it if I want to win - or to fight for - the championship," he added, perhaps correcting a slight Freudian slip.

That was to be the only remaining slip among the top six runners on Saturday, but behind the Hyundais and Toyotas there was plenty going on at M-Sport. The British squad had predicted that its Fiesta WRCs would be some way off the pace, and neither of its Finnish drivers, Teemu Suninen or Lappi, was able to mask his frustration at being in a race of their own.

So it was that a hare-and-tortoise battle developed between them in which Lappi threw caution to the wind and went so far beyond the Fiesta's natural pace that half the time he was hanging onto it all by his toenails. This meant that in some sectors Lappi was as quick as the Toyotas ahead of him, but in others he was waylaid by punctures, by going off line or even by missing the occasional junction entirely. "I have no ideas - I try to change something for this stage but it's going in the wrong direction so I can't find any more performance," he said glumly.

By contrast, the more reserved Suninen simply surrendered to the form of his car and focused on getting it to the finish. On stages when Lappi held it all together, Suninen would lose a few seconds to his team-mate, but any deficit was quickly made up when the other Fiesta was forced into an unplanned diversion. "Of course, it's been a long break between rallying so there is some room to improve my driving so let's focus on that step first," he said early on, but as the rally progressed he became less self-effacing. "I tried - but I needed to bring the car home. A difficult feeling," he concluded.

The third Fiesta in M-Sport's awning was occupied by Britain's Gus Greensmith, who ran the gamut of what Estonia had to throw at the crews including a spin, some radiator damage and the seemingly inevitable tyre troubles. Compounding his struggle was the presence of reigning WRC2 champion Pierre-Louis Loubet in a 2019-spec Hyundai. While Greensmith painstakingly gathers experience with every outing in 2020, the fact that he was dropping four to five seconds per stage to an asphalt specialist in his first appearance at the wheel of a pukka WRC car clearly rankled.

Ultimately, Loubet's rally would end with steering failure early on Sunday morning and leave Greensmith a clear path to eighth place and some valuable points. "We knew it wouldn't be an easy weekend but we have made improvements as things went along," he said at the finish. "I know everyone at M-Sport has done everything they can to help me improve this weekend, so a big thanks to them for their patience."

Another team making big improvements from Saturday to Sunday was Toyota, whose drivers would monopolise all six stage wins on the final day. Evans, adrift and at a loss to pinpoint why they were not closer to the Hyundais for much of Saturday, immediately won the first stage of the final loop. Ogier also won two of the last day's stages, which left Rovanpera to claim three stage wins, including a mighty effort on the Power Stage that kept too many bonus points heading towards the Hyundai camp.

For the huge crowds in the stage and across the country this was a moment for clutching flags and singing the national anthem as Tanak climbed onto the roof of his car and beat the living daylights out of it with joy

"We learned that we did our preparation test in too fast condition," Toyota team principal Tommi Makinen admitted, after an overnight change in the damping of the Yarises almost instantly saw them outpacing the Hyundais. "We had no realistic condition [to compare against]. That's the answer why our car was not absolutely perfect all over."

Neuville rejoined the fray on Sunday morning in a repaired Hyundai i20. His strategy was to trundle gently through the first five stages of the day in the hope of keeping his tyres fresh for a run at the bonuses awarded on the final 12-mile Power Stage. As it turned out, even this plan was doomed. Just before Neuville went into the Power Stage his engine developed an electrical fault that forced him to limp out of tight corners rather than sprint gamely through on his well-preserved rubber. "We didn't deserve this, to be honest," he lamented at the end of the event. "We were following our plan and yesterday we got kicked out of the line and paid for it immediately but, yeah... next time it's going to be better."

None of the other potential title contenders suffered terminal difficulties on the rally, but a plucky performance from Katsuta was poorly rewarded when he rolled the fourth Yaris out of sixth place on Sunday morning. Despite Katsuta's disappointment, Toyota came away from Estonia with its leads in both the drivers' and manufacturers' championships intact.

Once dialled in to Estonia's unique surface, the fleet of Yarises had pace enough to suggest that if the rally had gone on for a few more stages a very different result may have transpired - which will not have gone unnoticed by Hyundai's gimlet-eyed supremo, Andrea Adamo.

The Italian's focus is fixed squarely upon the job he was brought in to do; namely sealing the elusive WRC manufacturers' title for his employer. Even so, he could not fail to be moved by the scenes of jubilation around him as Estonia went into party mode.

"It's nice to see a man winning at home, no?" he said. "I think it's really important for him to win here and I think it's important for Craig to have shown that if he has the proper tool he can be at the same pace of the others, honestly."

Adamo's eyes were not the only ones smiling for the runner-up, and perhaps they even shared a slight tingling sensation around the lashes with Breen as he celebrated with, and paid tribute to, his co-driver Nagle and the rest of his team. "This man beside me has done an incredible job in building me up," he enthused. "The car has just given me so much confidence this weekend. I feel like I've started my career all over again. I haven't forgotten how to do it and I can't wait to do it more and more!"

For the huge crowds in the stage and across the country, meanwhile, this was a moment for clutching flags and singing the national anthem as Tanak climbed onto the roof of his car and beat the living daylights out of it with joy. This unusually demonstrative display was followed by a podium leap worthy of Michael Schumacher in his prime. No doubt Schuey would also have been impressed as Tanak used the ceremony to speak to the team.

"We have been working so, so hard - I mean the team has been working so, so hard, I've just been at home sitting on the sofa!" he joked. "But still great job guys, we keep pushing and I'm sure we can do it. It's great. Of course we have some previous knowhow and if you race at home, even if you don't know some roads, still you feel the support which you get from the people around, so it's amazing. It's a great feeling."