Tanak to rejoin Hyundai for 2024 rally season
Estonian driver Ott Tanak (C) and Estonian co-driver Martin Jarveoja (R) from the Ford team, first-place winners, congratulate British driver Elfyn Evans (L) and British co-driver Scott Martin from the Toyota team on their third place in the WRC Rally Chile, the eleventh round of the FIA World Rally Championship, in Talcahuano, Chile, on October 1, 2023. (Photo by Guillermo SALGADO / AFP)
Former world
rally champion Ott Tanak will return to Hyundai next season, the team announced
on Wednesday.
The Estonian
drove for Hyundai from 2020-22 but this season started a fifth stint with
M-Sport Ford. He won the world title in 2019 in the second of two seasons with
Toyota.
"I am
excited to re-join Hyundai Motorsport," Tanak said in a team press
release.
"Our goal
in this new chapter will be nothing less than to win all the three
titles...Game on!"
The
35-year-old has 19 rally victories including five in three seasons from 2020 in
his first spell with Hyundai.
This season,
Tanak won in Sweden in February and the most recent rally in Chile last
weekend.
With two races
to go this year he is fourth in the driver standings, 71 points behind leader
and reigning champion Kalle Rovanpera of Toyota.
Tanak will
take his co-driver Martin Jarveoja with him to Hyundai.
Hyundai's
other lead driver next season will be another 35-yar-old, Thierry Neuville. The
Belgian has driven for the team since they returned to the WRC in 2014 and
accounts for 18 of their 26 victories.
Neuville has
won once this season but is one place ahead of Tanak in the standings.
"I am
confident that, in the right environment, Thierry and Ott can bring out the
best in each other," said team principal Cyril Abiteboul.
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