Tanak has largely dominated the times to claim six of the event’s eight stages to date, winning five of Friday’s seven tests including a clean sweep of the morning loop.
The performance would have translated into a rally lead had the 2019 world champion avoided a five-minute penalty for an engine change on Thursday before the rally begun.
Tanak’s stirring effort in difficult circumstances has resulted in the Estonian climbing the leaderboard from 48th to 11th overall, 4m47.0s adrift of leader Kalle Rovanpera and one place outside of the points paying positions.
While admitting the result is bittersweet, Millener heaped praise on his driver, who produced a string a stage wins despite not feeling 100% comfortable behind the wheel of the Ford Puma.
This season marks Tanak’s second spell with the British squad having made his WRC debut with the team in 2011 before enjoying spells at Toyota and Hyundai prior to his return to M-Sport.
“It is good to see that the car performance is high. I’m sure he was driving over the limit without a doubt, and even not feeling 100% comfortable, we have to take our hats off to Ott,” Millener told Autosport.
“It has been an incredible drive. It is hard to take as we would be leading the rally but we can’t look at it that way as it is never going to change.
Source: Autosport