Tanak turns mechanic during Acropolis SWRC test

Rising star Ott Tanak turned mechanic today as his Super 2000 World Rally Championship rivals tested ahead of this week’s Acropolis Rally.

Tanak, who is employed as a technician for Markko Martin’s MM Motorsport operation when he’s not competing for the team at the sharp end of the SWRC field, was working on the Ford Fiesta S2000 of the squad’s second driver Frigyes Turan.

“Our car is already in Greece but we won’t make any test,” said the 23-year-old Tanak, who is currently tied with Martin Prokop at the head of the SWRC standings following his maiden victory on the previous round in Italy. “We will drive our car for the first time at the shakedown. Today I am a mechanic of Frigyes Turan.”

Today’s test near the village of Examilia took place on what organisers described as a road representative of the conditions crews will encounter on the Acropolis Rally, which gets underway with a ceremonial start in Athens on Thursday evening.

“We tested small things as we were also testing the car last week in a similar stage,” said Prokop, the winner of the SWRC season-opener in Mexico back in March.

Juho Hanninen, who is still chasing his first victory in this year’s SWRC in his factory-supported Red Bull Skoda Fabia, said: “We tested the suspension, the differentials and all these little things.”

Fiesta driver Bernardo Sousa, the SWRC winner in Jordan, experimented with different suspension settings and gear ratios, while Hermann Gassner Jr spent the test getting confident in his Fabia on the rough Greek roads.

Norwegian Skoda driver Eyvind Brynildsen said the test had given him the opportunity to “get into it and get ready” for the rally, which counts as round four of the eight-event SWRC season.