Autosport Top 50 of 2024: #41 Ott Tanak

There were no issues with Ott Tanak’s speed on his return to Hyundai’s World Rally Championship squad after a season at M-Sport, but consistency was lacking.

The Estonian wasn’t always comfortable behind the wheel of a much-improved i20 N Rally1 relative to the 2022-spec car, but did tame it to his liking towards the end of the year. Two wins helped take the drivers’ title fight down to the wire in Japan, but his season was littered with crashes and misfortune.

His accident in the season finale was costly in the manufacturers’ fight as Toyota defeated Hyundai by three points. 

How did Tanak fare on his Hyundai return? 

Much was made of the news that the 2019 world champion would return to Hyundai for the 2024 campaign alongside Thierry Neuville. A heated intra-team battle was expected between two drivers that have a tense relationship at the best of times.

Wins in Sardinia and Central Europe matched the tally he achieved in 2023, where Tanak outperformed his M-Sport Ford Puma which had undergone less development than the i20 N. But as in 2023, it took a while for the 2019 champion to get comfortable in his new surroundings. 

A quick glance at the stage wins tally shows Neuville won that battle 45-29, but it must be said that the former completed more stages. In 2023, Tanak won one more stage than this year and in 2022, he edged then Hyundai team-mate Neuville 41-34.

This struggle to find the Hyundai’s set-up sweet spot, coupled with errors and misfortune at the start of the year, put Tanak on the back foot early on in his fight with Neuville.  

In Monte Carlo, he was caught out by an ice patch and battled an engine mapping issue, while in Sweden he found a snowbank. Kenya’s collision with a rock in the road was extremely unfortunate, as was a collision with a deer while in contention in Poland, but a roll in Finland was damaging.   

When he was on form, Tanak was extremely fast – as his victory in Sardinia highlighted. That was almost proved again in Japan, having dominated the event before pushing just slightly over the limit. 

On Sunday points, the comparison between Tanak and Neuville is interesting. Tanak scored only six fewer than Neuville, although when it comes to the Power Stage the newly crowned world champion also outscored his stablemate by 10 points.    

But the crucial factor that attributed to the 42-point gap at the end of the year was those non-scores in Finland and Japan, the latter an event Tanak had comfortably in the bag before that now famous crash. Consistency is where Neuville had the edge over Tanak, as he scored points in every round and proved the master of this year’s radical point system. 

Now with Adrien Fourmaux added to the full-time driver ranks at the Korean marque, the competition will be even more intense at Hyundai. But with a year under his belt in the I20 N, you can expect a fightback from Tanak in 2025.

Can Tanak build on his season of reacclimatising to Hyundai and sustain another title challenge next term?

Photo by: Austral / Hyundai Motorsport