Rules workaround lets Ott Tänak race for himself in final 3 WRC season stages
To maximize his chances of a shot at the WRC drivers' title, Ott Tänak will not be scoring points for Hyundai in the last three races of this season, the team has announced.
A loophole in WRC and FIA regulations will make Tänak and co-driver Martin Järveoja in effect privateers but still with the Hyundai team and the full support.
The Estonian pair will still be scoring in the drivers' and co-drivers' table, and since Hyundai trails Toyota in the constructors' table by a whopping 125 points, this means something fairly drastic would need to happen for the Japanese team to not emerge victors this year.
For this reason the decision was made to take the Estonian pair off the manufacturers' table for the rest of this season while a drivers' title is still possible, at least mathematically.
A Hyundai Motorsport statement quoted by rally portal DirtFish read: "For the final three rounds of the 2025 FIA World Rally Championship season, Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team will only nominate Thierry Neuville and Adrien Fourmaux for manufacturers' points."
"This strategic decision allows Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja to compete without manufacturer nomination and by taking full advantage of the sporting regulations, the team is ensuring Tänak and Järveoja are in the strongest possible position to continue their fight for the drivers' and co-drivers' titles."
Tänak suffered an engine failure on the opening day of last month's Rally Chile. Under regulations, he was allowed to switch to the second engine in his two-unit allocation for Saturday and Sunday, but that motor developed overheating issues, leaving him down on power and only taking a single point, after a promising start to the weekend.
Ahead of the Central European Rally next month, Hyundai faced a tough choice: Either accept a five-minute penalty for fitting a new engine, or have one of Tänak's teammates, even reigning world champion Neuville, take one for the team, literally, by swapping cars with the Estonian, meaning the teammate would incur the penalty instead.
Hyundai have plumped for a more elegant solution, however.
By removing Tänak from the manufacturer points hunt, Hyundai frees him from many of the restrictions outlined in Article 17 of the WRC sporting regulations, which limits the use of mechanical components in points-scoring manufacturer cars.
Since cars not nominated for points don't require a driver to be paired with any "car name" before entry deadlines, the two-engine limit no longer applies.
Tänak is also freed from linked parts rules, meaning he won't have to use the same gearbox and differentials in Central Europe as in far-off Japan.
That rule had previously worked against him after Rally Paraguay, the race before Chile in the final round-the-world jaunt the closing stages of the season involve.
This "forced" Ott to inherit Fourmaux's engine in an effort to get a fresh transmission penalty-free, though this did not work out in Chile anyway.
Tänak is still limited to one spare gearbox and set of differentials per event, but benefits from exemptions on chassis limits, component sealing, and service crew restrictions that apply to points-nominated cars.
With 181 points, Tänak is currently 43 points off table leader, veteran driver and eight-time world champion Sébastien Ogier. Hungry for his maiden title, Welshman Elfyn Evans is just two points behind Ogier, while double world champion Kalle Rovanperä lies in third place on 203 points.
Tänak is however the lead Hyundai and non-Toyota driver.
Next on the World Championship calendar is the Central European Rally on the weekend of October 16–19, followed by rallies in Japan in early November and the season-closing and inaugural Saudi Arabia rally at the end of that month.
Tänak won his sole WRC drivers' title to date back in 2019, with Toyota. He left for Hyundai the following season and has been there ever since, save for one season with M-Sport Ford.
--
Editor: Andrew Whyte, Anders Nõmm
