How Tanak and M-Sport nailed Chile tactics to end their WRC barren spell

“I can’t remember an event like this before.” That was Ott Tanak’s summary of a particularly challenging Rally Chile that ultimately ended a character-building eight-month barren run for the Estonian and M-Sport in the World Rally Championship.

It’s fair to say that Tanak has witnessed pretty much everything the WRC can throw at you over a 14-year career in rallying’s highest level. But Chile’s welcome return to the calendar after a three-year hiatus offered up a vastly different prospect than back in 2019, a rally also claimed by Tanak.

The South American country boasts stages that tick a lot of boxes for drivers, combining attributes of the fast-and-flowing roads you can find in Wales, New Zealand and Finland. But nobody anticipated quite how abrasive Rally Chile’s virtually all-new route would be, and that turned the event into a strategic affair where tyre management was paramount.

“Normally every year you have events where you need to manage, but this one was management throughout the weekend,” reckoned Tanak. “It needed a very different approach.” It was Tanak and M-Sport that mastered this to firmly close the door on a run of heartbreak, misfortune, and reliability woes this year.

The event build-up was mainly centred around the fact that this was Toyota driver Kalle Rovanpera’s first match point to seal a second world title. The chance admittedly was slim. Equipped with a 33-point lead over Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans, the Finn would need to win the rally and for disaster to strike the Welshman. Likewise, Toyota could also wrap up a third manufacturers’ crown. But Rovanpera knew that his chance of victory would be limited by road position, with cleaning duties much more time-sapping than at other rallies.

“I think the key will be to try and manage with opening the road and a lot of loose gravel, but I think there will be quite a lot of tyre choices – the ones we have to make will be crucial,” he predicted.

Sweeping the dusty gravel meant Rovanpera was never in the fight for victory

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Rovanpera’s words would turn out to be quite prophetic. He was unable to repeat his Acropolis Rally sweeping masterclass of just three weeks prior; here, the stages were even messier on the second pass thanks to loose gravel.

“That was maybe one of the worst stages for driving from me this year,” grumbled Rovanpera after the first test. “It was loose, more loose than we expected.” He drove admirably to limit the time loss across Friday to 38.7s to earn fifth overall, with his title prospects very much taking a back seat. If anything his highlight was saying hello “to a really cute dog on the road section” that “hopefully gives us some good luck at least”.

Rovanpera fared much better than his compatriot, Hyundai's Esapekka Lappi, and M-Sport’s Pierre-Louis Loubet, who were both lucky to emerge unscathed from frightening rolls and became the first retirements. Lappi clipped a concrete culvert at the final corner of the opening test, sending his i20N into a series of rolls before coming to rest with the finish line in sight.

Loubet’s shocking exit was contrasted by rare joy for M-Sport team-mate Tanak, who ended Friday with a 4.2s lead over Hyundai’s Teemu Suninen

“I guess I braked late and there was no chance to make the corner,” he related. "The roll cage is quite damaged, so there is no chance [of continuing].”

Loubet had impressed through the first three stages to put his M-Sport Ford Puma in fourth before it came undone in a scary accident. The Frenchman exited the road at high speed, triggering a spectacular aerial crash before the car came to rest on its roof near trees.

“Unfortunately on a very fast section, maybe we did not understand something with Nicolas [Gilsoul, co-driver] and we did a mistake, and unfortunately there was a big crash,” said a dejected Loubet. “I didn’t feel like I was over-pushing, so it is big disappointment as it was not a proper mistake.”

The car wouldn’t rejoin the rally, with M-Sport team principal Richard Millener stating: “I appreciate that’s sad for people that have come to see these cars, but we’ve got be conscious of us as a team and the budgets we have for the rest of the season.”

While there was joy on Friday for Tanak, Loubet was reflecting on a huge rally-ending shunt

Photo by: M-Sport

Loubet’s shocking exit was contrasted by rare joy for M-Sport team-mate Tanak, who ended Friday with a 4.2s lead over Hyundai’s Teemu Suninen, the pair benefiting from road position. Tanak’s day started by winning the opening stage. But a heavy landing from a jump in stage two knocked out his Puma’s hybrid power, alongside a damper issue and a spin that dropped him to third. Two out of three stage wins from the afternoon restored the lead from an impressive Suninen, with Evans only 12.7s adrift in third.

“It was very fast in places, but also quite blind, so with the grip as it was, the pacenotes were really critical,” explained Evans, who had started second on the road. “But given our starting position this morning, it’s quite OK to at least be in the fight.”

It made a change for Tanak to be enjoying a Friday, although he was cautious: “One day doesn’t mean anything but it is good for motivation. For the team, I'm very happy. It is much more abrasive tomorrow and the tyre choice will be tricky to make. It will be worse and today [Friday] was already quite bad.”

But perhaps the recovery of the day belonged to M-Sport Rally1 debutant Gregoire Munster, who arrived at the first stage without a pacenote book. Co-driver Louis Louka had left it behind, but his quick thinking resulted in photos of the notes being sent to his phone, and the device became a makeshift pacenote book. The pair ended the day seventh, behind Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta.

As Tanak had predicted, Saturday’s roads were kryptonite for tyres. Strategy was crucial, and it was the tyre choice between Pirelli’s soft and hard compounds that provided the platform for victory. M-Sport opted for four hards and two softs, ditto Hyundai. Toyota ‘put everything on black’ and selected only softs. The diverging strategies delivered striking results.

It was M-Sport that hit the jackpot in this round of tyre roulette, while Toyota was left red-faced after a rare mistake. Even equipped with hard tyres, Tanak and the Hyundais of Suninen and Thierry Neuville were forced into tyre-preservation mode early in Saturday’s loop. The softs, meanwhile, spelt disaster for the Toyota trio of Evans, Rovanpera and Katsuta, which hit home on stage nine (Maria de las Cruces) – at 28.72km the longest of the rally.

The Toyotas simply ran out of rubber. The first warning sign came when Katsuta’s rear tyres delaminated. Reduced to a crawl, Rovanpera admitted he was lucky to reach the finish with bald tyres, ceding 46s, while Evans’s rears delaminated in the final 10km and he lost almost a minute, plummeting from second to fourth – one place ahead of Rovanpera – and undoing his work to reduce the gap to his title rival.

“[The tyre decision] is quite a mistake, that’s true,” mused Evans. “I think we just underestimated the rate of wear. We knew it was more abrasive and, looking back now, it was a stupid choice and there’s no hiding from that fact.”

Evans was frustrated by Toyota's tyre faux pas on Saturday that dropped the Japanese cars back from the Hyundais

Photo by: Toyota Racing

Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala held his hands up over the error, admitting: “It was still a surprise that the stage was that bad. We did a mistake with the tyre choice but where it came from is we had a lot of data. This year we have done maybe 70 to 80 tyre choices and more than 70 we have succeeded, but this time our data was not good enough.”

As Toyota was left floundering, M-Sport’s inspired tyre call to take four hards helped Tanak to a stage win that came with the added bonus of a 47.8s lead over Suninen as Neuville jumped to third. Unsurprisingly, all crews took hard tyres for the afternoon loop, but again it was Tanak who judged the gamble of knowing when and where to push. Four fastest times from the day’s six stages left him with a 58.3s advantage over Suninen.

“Clearly most of it [my drive] was decided last night in the container,” declared Tanak. “This 40-50s this morning was clearly because of the tyre choices and the differences we did compared to the others. Initially I thought I was maybe driving a bit too slow [in the afternoon] and saving the tyres too much as my tyre wear was less than this morning, but we had a good tyres for the next two stages.”

"I was just a few centimetres too tight with my line and hit a tree stump, which was game over. Thankfully we are unhurt. I’m very sorry to the entire team" Teemu Suninen

After providing drama in the morning, the second pass through Maria de las Cruces delivered yet more incident. Munster clouted a bank with his Puma, causing front and rear-right punctures. A seven-minute stop to change tyres meant he rejoined in front of Rovanpera, who caught his dust trail and was left fighting for visibility for 18km.

Drivers in the past have hit the rev limiter over this cardinal sin of failing to pull over to let the fast car through. But not Rovanpera. “It's a bit like driving in Super Mario Kart when someone is throwing bananas or smoke bombs in front of you,” he smiled. “I was definitely losing a lot of time, let's see how much we get back.” Rovanpera was awarded an amended time, while Munster was fined €500 for failing to pull over and dropped outside the top 10.

After surviving two wild moments, Neuville ended Saturday in third, 13.9s behind Suninen, despite suffering a puncture in the morning followed by an electrical issue on his Hyundai in the afternoon.

Bad luck has swirled around Tanak for much of the season since his Sweden win in February, but there was not a hint of misfortune on Sunday. He was able to cruise through the final four stages to complete his Chilean masterclass by a margin of 42.1s. In doing so, rarely seen smiles returned to not only he and co-driver Martin Jarveoja, but the entire M-Sport team.

“It's great to finally have some positive outcome,” stated Tanak. "Thanks to mechanics and everybody in the container who came here. We are a really small bunch of people but they did a great job."

Suninen was devastated to lose a podium in the final throes of the rally with a costly tree stump altercation

Photo by: Vincent Thuillier / Hyundai Motorsport

Chile did have one final twist when the battle for second between Hyundai duo Suninen and Neuville intensified. With the gap down 6.7s, Suninen cracked. The Finn clipped a tree stump on the penultimate stage, sending him into an agonising retirement.

“I was just a few centimetres too tight with my line and hit a tree stump, which was game over,” he sighed. “Thankfully we are unhurt. I’m very sorry to the entire team.”

Suninen’s exit promoted Neuville to second, Evans to third and Rovanpera to fourth ahead of Katsuta. Rovanpera then reeled off his now customary Power Stage win ahead of Evans, which secured Toyota a third consecutive manufacturers’ crown. Rovanpera’s championship lead was only reduced to 31 points with two rounds remaining.

“I’m not really [happy with the result for the championship], but I was happy Elfyn was close and not far away and he only caught up a few points,” said Rovanpera. Evans added: “It’s hard to be happy in these circumstances but it could be a lot worse. It’s still a fight in the championship even though the gap is marginally reduced, but of course it’s still open.”

A largely faultless drive from Oliver Solberg in his Skoda sealed the WRC2 honours in sixth overall, with Gus Greensmith 26s adrift.

While Chile will be remembered as a victory for Tanak, this was perhaps an even more significant win for M-Sport after a particularly challenging period. With the team’s very existence in rallying’s top tier yet to be secured, the win could mean a whole lot more than 25 points.

“Within the team the result is massive for us,” enthused Millener. “The motivation was low and the frustration was high but now everyone’s mood has been lifted. The team did the best they can to help Ott and Martin along, but ultimately Ott showed again his ability and his class this weekend. I think this shows why we were so desperate to have Ott in the team at the start of the year.

“We can only prove that we have a team and a car capable of winning and we will be pushing to use that to make sure we have the strongest line-up possible next year, and obviously hope that we are competing next year. It can only help when we get a result like this.”

Victory for Tanak was a long-awaited result for M-Sport after a tough season

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