At no point did Tänak find a good rhythm, and it was clear early on that without major mistakes from those ahead, the Estonian would not be competing for the win in Croatia.
Then came the familiar story. Tänak aimed to maintain as good a position as possible and save his efforts for “Super Sunday.” The plan also worked in Croatia, as Tänak, finishing fourth in the overall competition, captured 20 World Championship points.
That’s just one point less than Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier, who won the rally.
“It’s quite unbelievable,” Tänak summarized his feelings.
“Of course, I have to be satisfied with this number of points when finishing fourth in the rally, but generally speaking, where this sport is at the moment… surely the winner should celebrate a bit more,” Tänak continued.
While the points were satisfying, Tänak’s weekend was otherwise disappointing.
“This weekend was once again tough for us. We started poorly and paid a high price at the beginning of the rally. On Friday and Saturday, we managed to recover somewhat from that. Today then we examined how we could make these weekends better. On Saturday, we realized there weren’t really better options. Today we just tried to take everything we could from this challenging starting position,” Tänak recounted.
“We were simply too far behind, and we couldn’t close the gap on the dirty roads. Then everyone had quite a few incidents, and we benefited from them and thus took good points from this rally,” Tänak continued.
The World Rally Championship series will continue in May on the gravel roads of Portugal.
“Now the gravel season starts as we have several consecutive races on gravel. I hope to get a better feel on gravel and be more competitive. Normally, the road position should now help, so hopefully, we can get back to scoring points,” Tänak anticipated.
