At the beginning of the year, M-Sport decided to redo what it had already proposed in the 2017-2018 two-year period, i.e. to sign a top WRC driver to try and aim for the World Rally championship titles. The name of the pilot in question is Ott Tanak. When certain choices are made and implemented, it is only right to pursue them to the end and the British team seems to be exactly of this idea.
At Rally Italia Sardegna, the sixth round of the 2023 WRC which takes place this weekend in the north of the Italian island, the British team brings new suspensions made by its supplier, Reiger.
After Rally Portugal, Ott Tanak had asked the team to bring updates to the Ford Puma Rally1 as soon as possible to try and improve its performance and, at the same time, continue to fight for the title.
Already in the development tests carried out right after the Portuguese event, Tanak had the opportunity to test the new suspensions. The first results seem to be positive. Perhaps not all the problems will be solved by this novelty, but it seems that the Estonian is happy with the response of the components that will make their debut in the race this weekend.
“I needed to do these tests. Reiger brought some updates and they worked quite well,” the Estonian told Motorsport.com.
Ott Tänak, M-Sport Ford World Rally Team
Photo by: M-Sport
“We made some steps forward compared to Rally Mexico, but in Portugal the biggest difficulty was the suspension and they came up with some new solutions. So we definitely took the first step and the feeling was better. It’s a bit early to say if we’re completely fine. We’ve definitely improved.”
Last year Rally Italia Sardegna was one of the best events for M-Sport, with Craig Breen able to finish in second place and Pierre-Louis Loubet in fourth, thus obtaining the best result of his career so far.
Despite this assumption, Tanak doesn’t think that the historical results could be an element capable of helping the team this weekend: “Everything that happened last year has passed. We are now a year ahead and everything has changed. In motorsport nobody stands still, so we’ll see,” concluded the Estonian.
Read also:
