Ott Tanak dominantly wins the Rally Finland

Ott Tanak (Toyota Gazoo Racing) wins the 68th Rally Finland, the eighth round of the 2018 World Rally Championship. It’s his third win this season and the fourth WRC victory in a career.

Tanak took the lead on the opening special stage on Thursday evening and then fought for the lead against Citroen’s Mads Ostberg during Friday. Tanak ended a day with a 5.8-second advantage over Ostberg and then increased the lead to 39 seconds during Saturday. In the end, Tanak defeated Ostberg by 32.7 seconds, also being fastest on the last Power Stage to take the maximum of 30 points.

Ostberg was under the attack of Toyota’s Jari-Matti Latvala until the last stage but he managed to defend his second place on the podium. After 23 stages, the gap was just 2.8 seconds.

Mads Ostberg finished second in Finland

Hayden Paddon was the best Hyundai driver in the fourth place, ahead of three M-Sport’s Ford Fiestas. Thanks to the team orders, Sebastien Ogier was fifth, followed by teammates Teemu Suninen and Elfyn Evans. Craig Breen (Citroen) finished in the eighth place.

The championship leader Thierry Neuville struggled for most of the weekend as the road-cleaner and finished in the ninth place, ahead of his teammate Andreas Mikkelsen who crashed on SS4 on Friday but recovered to the tenth place.

Esapekka Lappi (Toyota) was on a charge on Saturday, winning three stages and progressing from P6 to P4. Unfortunately, his good run ended on Sunday morning with a crash.

The next WRC round is the ADAC Rallye Deutschland on August 16-19. Thierry Neuville leads the championship with 153 points, twenty more than Sebastien Ogier. Ott Tanak is third with 107 points.