Tänak became world champion, the first Estonian to achieve that feat, in 2019 with Toyota, in a season in which he won six out of 14 races, three more than his nearest competitors.

This was only a couple of years after his maiden senior WRC victory, making his rise pretty meteoric. The title also broke the long dominance of the two French Sebastiens: Loeb and Ogier, who had taken every championship from 2004 to 2018. While Toyota are dominant nowadays, in 2019 Ott also brought the Japanese team their first drivers' title since Didier Auriol in 1994.

No piece about Tänak would be complete without referencing fellow Estonian Martin Järveoja, his ever-steady co-driver. While Tänak had had previous Estonian co-drivers, notably Raigo Mõlder, it was Järveoja who stayed with him through thick and thin from 2017 onward, with the pair taking their first WRC win in Sardinia that year.

Early beginnings on Saaremaa

But where did it all start? Those of use old enough to remember the 1980s and early 1990s will recall WRC rallying seemed an almost entirely — not French this time, but Finnish — domain, with big names like Juha Kankkunen, Tommi Mäkinen, Hannu Mikkola, Markku Alén, and Ari Vatanen almost taking it in turns to win races and championships.

While there are plenty of top Finnish drivers today too, the idea back then of that country's immediate neighbor to the south making it big in international motorsport would have been unthinkable: Estonia was still languishing under Soviet occupation meaning the WRC and other top series were more or less fully closed.

This is not to say there wasn't a thriving motorsport scene in Estonia too. In fact Tänak's father, Ivar, started rallying while the Soviet Union was still a fact, later competing in an independent Estonia.

A native of Saaremaa, Estonia's largest island, Ott grew up in the village of Kärla. Encouraged by his father, he studied car mechanics at vocational school in Kuressaare, going on to find success in the domestic rally series. This culminated in back-to-back titles in 2008–2009 for a team run by another Estonian, whose name has been closely entwined with Ott's: Markko Märtin.

Markko Märtin and the path to the WRC

Märtin was the first Estonian to race in WRC following the restoration of independence, and the first to win a round too — at the 2003 Acropolis Rally.

He won four more races and looked like Estonia's great hope until tragedy struck in Wales in 2005, when his British co-driver Mike Park was killed. A disconsolate Märtin left the sport soon after. The event also brought home the fact that rallying can be dangerous — something Tänak would be reminded of years later with the April 2023 death of Craig Breen, whose family he traveled to Ireland to comfort.

More happily, Märtin became Tänak's mentor and contributed greatly to the younger driver's success, including opening the doors to the WRC ladder.

Ascending through the ranks: PWRC, SWRC, and debut full WRC seasons
Strong domestic results and the Märtin link led to Tänak's first chance in the WRC, where he finished a solid 20th in Portugal. He raced in the supporting PWRC in 2010, then in the SWRC, another second-tier series, the following season, scoring his first WRC points in Mexico in 2011.

The following year 2012 he had his first full WRC season in the Ford Fiesta RS, taking his first podium finish in Sardinia, a race which ended up being somewhat of a good luck charm for the man from Saaremaa.

A sabbatical followed for Tänak in 2013, when he raced at home in the domestic series. Next came a return to WRC in 2014 in the second-tier WRC2 series, with the now-defunct DMACK team. Some senior WRC rounds with M-Sport and Raigo Mõlder as co-driver also brought more experience.

The 2015–2016 seasons with both M-Sport and DMACK were a little uneventful, though podiums showed momentum returning.

The turning point: 2017–2018

2017 was the real watershed year. Teaming up with Ogier, Tänak returned to M-Sport full-time and got the co-driver who would stay with him from then on: Martin Järveoja. A string of podiums led to that elusive first win, in Sardinia, followed later by one in Germany. Tänak finished third overall and was named Estonia's sportsperson of the year.

This superb season led to a two-year deal with Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT, run by Tommi Mäkinen.

A third place in the 2019 season opener in Monte Carlo, followed by a win in Sweden, quelled any doubts that Tänak and Toyota were a force to be reckoned with, and brought the driver to the top of the table for the first time ever. A podium in Mexico was improved upon greatly with a win in Chile over Ogier, who was looking for a seventh consecutive title win, and over Loeb, nine-time champion.

Even after a disappointing last-minute loss in Rally Sardinia, scene of his first ever victory, Tänak did not miss a beat. Four more wins meant that he claimed the coveted WRC drivers' title in Catalunya, one race before the planned season closer. As it turned out, forest fires in Australia led to that race being canceled, making Catalunya the decisive round.

The ensuing adulation — Järveoja won the co-drivers' title too — included a video congratulation message from then President Kersti Kaljulaid.

Just to show how close things were, Toyota did not win the manufacturers' title — Hyundai did that time. But Tänak bagged his first WRC drivers' crown, the first Estonian ever to reach that level, and the first person for many seasons whose first name wasn't Sebastien.

After the title: The first Hyundai Years and mixed fortunes (2020–2022)

Ott promptly changed teams after his 2019 triumph, signing with Hyundai and with Neuville, still after his maiden title too, a new teammate. The 2020 season was of course greatly shortened by Covid, and a major shunt in Monte Carlo made for an inauspicious start. Still, he claimed an emotional win at the first full WRC Rally Estonia and finished third in the table overall.

The 2021 season brought reliability issues and retirements, though wins in Arctic Rally Finland and strong podiums in Kenya, Greece and Finland lifted spirits.

In 2022, new hybrid rules, which Ott was a fairly vocal critic of, caused fresh headaches for Hyundai. While these rules have since been scrapped, the departure of team boss Andrea Adamo at this time hardly buoyed spirits. Despite this, Tänak took podiums in Croatia and wins in Sardinia, naturally; Finland and Belgium.

A tight fight with teammate Neuville and Toyota's new Finnish star Kalle Rovanperä defined the year. Controversy struck in Greece when Neuville, who was leading the rally ahead of Tänak, did not yield the position despite no reported team orders, a move which would have boosted Tänak's title bid. Rovanperä ultimately took his first title for Toyota, with Tänak runner-up for Hyundai.

M-Sport reunion and Hyundai part two (2023–2024)

The 2023 season saw Tänak return to M-Sport Ford. Expectations were modest given the team is much less well-funded than Toyota or Hyundai, the only other teams competing at the top level following Citroen's departure a few seasons before.

With that in mind, 2023 was a creditable season for Tänak, as he finished fifth in Monte Carlo and then won in Sweden in the Ford Puma Rally1.

However, the year was overshadowed by the death of Irishman Craig Breen in testing ahead of the Croatia round.

Later, a Rally Chile win and strong end-season form brought respect despite reliability struggles, and late on in 2023 the announcement came that Tänak would rejoin Hyundai.

In 2024 he began strongly with a podium in Portugal and yet another Sardinia win. Farce struck in Poland when he and Järveoja hit a deer, ending their race.

Rally Estonia was off the calendar for that one season, replaced by Latvia, where Tänak finished third in his other near-home race. A second win at the Central European Rally kept him in contention, but retirement in Japan handed the title to Neuville, the Belgian finally taking his first trophy.

2025 and big decisions...

Toyota's dominance intensified through 2025. While Ott and Martin took just the one race win, namely in Greece, they scored points every time, with several second places and a home podium in Estonia. This consistency meant they were in with a mathematical chance of a title, albeit as outsiders, right until the penultimate round in Japan.

Due to a quirk in the rules on engine changes and the fact that Toyota had all but bagged the constructors' title by Rally Chile, Hyundai had allowed Tänak to race for himself, keeping the points for himself only. Not doing so would have incurred a penalty. At the end of the day a fourth place in Japan was not enough, however, and Toyota went into the final round with either Ogier or Welshman Elfyn Evans to be title winners.

It was right after Japan that Ott first announced he would be taking a break from the sport. He finished 11th in the inaugural Rally Saudi Arabia at the end of last month. Ogier took his ninth title.

Legacy

And so it went: A world title in 2019 and runner-up in 2022, plus four third-place championship finishes, across over 170 races and more than 15 seasons.

Tänak's 22 WRC rally victories put him eighth on the all-time list. Only Loeb and Ogier from the current crop lie above him; the others are past greats, most recently Marcus Grönholm and Tommi Mäkinen, both from Finland, along with three legends: Juha Kankkunen (Finland), the late Colin McRae (Scotland) and Carlos Sainz (Spain), father of the current Formula One driver of the same name.

Off the track but during his career, Tänak got married, had two children, bagged several sport awards, and starred in a documentary, Ott Tänak: The Movie, released in 2018.

He has formally confirmed he will not be racing at all in 2026, but at just 35, never say never about a future return to a sport which even at its pinnacle sometimes sees men in their 40s race.

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