Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja secured their seventh podium of the year at Rally Australia, bringing their time with the M-Sport family to a positive close. After that Tänak became for a second consecutive season Driver of the year, while Järveoja took the co-drivers’ honours.
Having to contend with an unfavourable road position through the opening day of competition in Australia, the pairing gained confidence throughout the weekend and posted three fastest stage times on their way to second place overall.
Tänak and Järveoja have been an instrumental part of the team’s success and all of the M-Sport family thanked them both and wished them the very best of luck with their new adventures
“It was important to finish the season like this and to finish our time with the M-Sport family in such a positive way. On Friday we were struggling a bit with the pace and losing the rear diffuser didn’t help with the balance. But after this we managed to find a good average speed and had the pace to achieve a podium”, Tänak said.
“To be honest, I didn’t think too much about this being our last rally with Malcolm [Wilson] and the team until the last road section when Martin started to play some sad songs! It’s been a long journey together and it’s never easy to leave a family. It feels quite hard actually, but the whole championship is also a family so this isn’t goodbye, it’s just see you later.”
The Estonian driver defined 2017 as a great season for him. He took his first WRC win and challenged for the title
“There’s no doubt it’s been the best season so far”, Tänak added. “Maybe our approach was not right for fighting for the championship. When we started the season we were missing the first win and I was more focused on winning rallies rather than collecting the points. At the end of the season, we were close to putting pressure on Seb [Ogier], but overall we were not ready to fight for the drivers’ championship. In Monte, we will have a different mindset and different targets. We will need to approach in a different way. It’s good to be in a winning team and great to see a private team can win the manufacturers’ championship. It’s been a great season. All the M-sport guys have all pushed so hard. It’s a nice family.”
“I think there is no secret we want to fight for the drivers’ championship, this is our personal target. We have been close this year, so I see no reason why we don’t do it in the future. Yes, we change the team, but we can see Toyota is capable of doing anything.”
Driver/Co-Driver/Team/Livery of the year! ???? Thank you everyone! You rock ?? ? pic.twitter.com/pGZO5lNhRa
— Ott Tänak (@OttTanak) November 20, 2017
