Ott Tänak has been one of the great protagonists of the Rally of Croatia after finishing second in his Hyundai i20 N Rally1. A result that can be misleading, especially if you take into account that Tänak became the leader of the race in the penultimate stage. Nevertheless, this situation and its final result have more to do with the successive successes in mounting tires than with the actual performance of the Hyundai. The Estonian himself acknowledges this, thus demanding a new step forward from the brand after achieving his first podium of the season.
In fact, Tänak has been clear about it and has ensured that his second place in the Rally of Croatia has to do directly with a smart choice of tires and not with the absolute performance of the car. His choice of two Pirelli P Zero soft compounds cross-mounted with two Cinturato RWB rain tires allowed the Estonian to set the scratch in SS19 with a 16.3 margin over his rivals. Kalle Rovanperä himself endorsed nothing more and nothing less than 29.8 seconds.
Although this second place was the best result of Ott Tanak To date, the Estonian knows that there is still a long way to go: «We were very smart with the choice of tires and how we managed the weather. The team did a great job with that on Sunday and throughout the rally. We always had the correct tyres, unlike our rivals. The second is a positive result, I think it is more than could be expected. We can see that we still lack the pace that Kalle Rovanperä has.”
«We know we have a lot of work to do, but in the end this weekend things have gone well for us. Our weatherman did a good job, because no one was quite sure on Sunday morning that it was going to rain. It was almost a long shot, but we decided to take that risk and it worked out for us.. After the first stage it was so-so and I started to worry, but in the end it was perfect. This success was incredible »added Tänak about his tire choice.
In this line, the Estonian pilot has concluded: «The end result is not a matter of luck and Kalle beat us on sheer speed and performance. He was faster than the rest all weekend. We were able to keep it under pressure with our tire choices, but other than that we had no pace to respond to it. All we could do was make no mistake. I think after the situation we had on Friday night we did the best we could do».
Photos: hyundai motorsport