How M-Sport’s Christmas came early with Tanak WRC signing

It must feel as if Christmas has come early for M-Sport. Months of negotiations have finally yielded the present they all wanted: the signing of 2019 world rally champion Ott Tanak.

Tanak rejoining the Ford squad that launched his WRC career would have prompted a collective sigh of relief, not only from an M-Sport team looking to bounce back from a disappointing 2022, but from the Estonian’s legions of supporters, the WRC and rally fans across the globe.

But it was a homecoming deal that at times looked unlikely to come to fruition.

“I think there were a good few months where it was like, it is good to hear you are interested, but there is no chance we can make that work and I have no idea how we are going to make that work,” team principal Richard Millener tells Motorsport.com.

For several months, the sight of Tanak, one of the WRC’s most talented stars, and the driver who was among the few to take the fight to runaway 2022 champion Kalle Rovanpera, on the sidelines was a very real prospect.

Tanak faced an uncertain future after electing to leave Hyundai with a year left on his contract. A season littered with reliability issues amid internal management complications left Tanak seeking a new challenge. With limited options at the WRC’s top level, he even admitted to the media that a sabbatical was being considered.

After two seasons at Toyota, culminating in the ultimate prize in 2019, and a challenging three seasons at Hyundai, M-Sport, the team where Tanak scored his first podium (Sardinia 2012) and win (Sardinia 2017), seemed an obvious and perfect fit for 2023. The Ford squad was in the market for a superstar to lead its ranks, but putting two and two together isn’t a simple task in the world of motorsport.

Speculation linking Tanak to M-Sport had already begun when it became clear his relationship with Hyundai was beginning to sour before Tanak dropped his departure bombshell after Rally Spain. The nadir of a crumbling partnership came at the Acropolis Rally, when the team elected against issuing orders to switch its drivers to allow Tanak, its best hope for the championship, to claim victory in a comfortable, history-making 1-2-3 for the squad.

While M-Sport’s interest was clear, there were indeed hurdles. The words “drivers such as Ott Tanak come with big price tags” were bandied about by the team as the harsh realities of financing such a move, for an operation which doesn’t boast…