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Ott Tänak - Future champion?

He said several times, that he currently doesn't have any plans for Rally Estonia or next season. His messages regarding his future have alwasys been quite cryptic, but my interpretation is that the plans may change anytime depending the circumstances.

He also admitted he doesn't want to compete, when he is not able to drive for the win. One funny comment from the interview was that he is feeling sorry for the rally fans. He has been following All-live and during the events it is difficult to do anything else for thee days.

In my opinion Toyota wouldn't let him do development work for the new car, if they didn't have any long term plans for him. Otherwise he could join another team and bring them all the knowledge about the new Toyota. The long term commitment could also be through his personal team, when they might want to run WRC27 Toyota cars. Right now they maganing Yaris rally2-s.
 
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What if Subaru will really come? Will Solberg be pursuited? Or Taka. He raised his bar and could have many options for next year. And Ogier could finaly retire. And Toyota would be hungry for good drivers. And surely that would open the door widely for Tanak. And believe me, he wouldn't say no to Toyota.
 
Switching away from Toyota would be quite stupid, but so were many team switches (Alonso, Tanak himself), so we might see some shuffling around, leading to an open seat
 
I think stupid decision is switching the team and car after you won the title with them. If you do it when you are doing bad or good, it could be better or worse. If you do it like Tanak did, it almost always means you will do it worse. Or Hamilton with Ferarri.
 
denkimi said:
I doubt he would say no if toyota asked him to do some rallies. I even doubt if he would say no to a full season if he has a real chance of becoming champion.
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Fast Eddie WRC said:
I guess it depends on Ogier for him to come back (in a Toyota). Otherwise there's no seat available. My money is on Ogier retiring as not wanting to drop to Rally2-speed cars.

Tanak and the other drivers still have the hunger and WRC is their whole life.
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trykmann said:
He said several times, that he currently doesn't have any plans for Rally Estonia or next season. His messages regarding his future have alwasys been quite cryptic, but my interpretation is that the plans may change anytime depending the circumstances.

He also admitted he doesn't want to compete, when he is not able to drive for the win. One funny comment from the interview was that he is feeling sorry for the rally fans. He has been following All-live and during the events it is difficult to do anything else for thee days.

In my opinion Toyota wouldn't let him do development work for the new car, if they didn't have any long term plans for him. Otherwise he could join another team and bring them all the knowledge about the new Toyota. The long term commitment could also be through his personal team, when they might want to run WRC27 Toyota cars. Right now they maganing Yaris rally2-s.
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A lot of good points. I watched the interview, and I add some more aspects.

For me it said clearly out - Toyota has no seats, but if there is an offer, they are considering it.

Also, he said "Keeping myself in shape" - you don't do it for no reason.

One more thing (outside of the interview) - he goes to the testing with Järveoja. Järveoja skipped his own sports event with cross-carts, so I interpret it as a sacrifice. If they have no plan to continue together/further, there are probably other options available. So the team continues to work together.

Basically, we can say that Tänak will drive in 2027 if Mr Toyoda says so.
 
meh said:
A lot of good points. I watched the interview, and I add some more aspects.

For me it said clearly out - Toyota has no seats, but if there is an offer, they are considering it.

Also, he said "Keeping myself in shape" - you don't do it for no reason.

One more thing (outside of the interview) - he goes to the testing with Järveoja. Järveoja skipped his own sports event with cross-carts, so I interpret it as a sacrifice. If they have no plan to continue together/further, there are probably other options available. So the team continues to work together.

Basically, we can say that Tänak will drive in 2027 if Mr Toyoda says so.
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It seems their future with Toyota depends mostly on Ogiers decision to retire or not.

However if Toyota would have serious competition next year, then their driver lineup doesn't look that strong anymore. All their current success is mostly due to the fact how badly Hyundai and M-sport are doing.
Evans - Very consistent and quick if needed, but I still would rate him a bit lower than Ogier, Neuville or Tänak
Solberg - Speed is there, but has managed to make mistakes in all rallies so far. THis is not the way to win a championship.
Katsuta - Has improved his pace, but two wins are still due to failure of others
Pajari - He is someone to look out for. I previously didn't have a high opinion about him, but his consistency and most importantly speed has been good. For example Ogier was not able to beat him today on the powerstage.
Ogier - Probably still the best driver out there, but we don't know about his plans.
 
Ferranis said:
Not stupid for his bank account though. I wonder if this was also part of the reason of Tanak switching to Hyundai in the past
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Not directly in a sense that Ott himself said that he lost in salary when moving to Hyundai https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQgVFKPWN2k and @ 22:50 There are English subtitles as well.

But I think it came with a Hyundai R5 project where they earned that money difference back and much more. In 2020 there was a news that RedGrey (formerly MM Motorsport), a company owned by Markko Märtin and Ott Tänak, was responsible for the maintenance and development of Hyundai R5 cars in the WRC2 championship starting from that 2020 season.
 
Ott Tänak has confirmed that he would not participate this year's rally Estonia: https://ralli.ee/ott-tanak-tanavu-r...orgel-tasemel-osalemiseks-puuduvad-voimalused

I don't know what is the original source as ralli.ee usually reposts news from other sites but most of the time they also are legit.

Ott said that "We discussed this topic with Urmo Aava in the middle of the winter, but it quickly became clear that there was no realistic opportunity to do it at a high level. There have been no further negotiations since then, and we definitely won't be on the start line this year."
 
Knowing how he always is bluffing and “lying” to media then I’m sure he will be in published entry list on Monday. Lol
 
EstWRC said:
Ott Tänak will make his first rally appearance for Toyota since 2019 at next month’s Rally di Roma Capitale, driving a GR Yaris Rally2 as the event’s zero car

https://dirtfish.com/rally/wrc/tanak-to-drive-toyota-zero-car-at-rally-di-roma-capitale/
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And Rally di Roma Capitale is in next years WRC calendar, i think its a good possibility to see Ott in a Toyota next season.
Why on this earth will Toyota do testing and let him drive this rally if thats not on the table.

Sent fra min SM-S901B via Tapatalk
 
What if he will show up in their Rally2 car (''stock''), won and ashame everyone, WRC27 car, Rally2 Kit car, and the rest of Rally2 cars.
 
Seems like tanak will drive for toyota next year, but still has some sort of contract with hyundai forbidding him to do competitive rallies.
 
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