Clash with WRC scrutineer earns Ott Tanak 5-min penalty, suspended 35-point hit

The world championship leader’s Rally Finland has gone from bad to worse after an unusual incident

Stewards have handed Ott Tanak a five-minute penalty and a suspended World Rally Championship 35-point deduction following an incident involving a scrutineer at Rally Finland.

The incident occurred at the end of Friday’s stage seven, which proved to be eventful for the championship leader after sliding off the road and striking a tree. The impact caused damage to the cooling system of Tanak’s Hyundai i20 N.

To avoid the car overheating, the 2019 world champion was keen to leave stop control promptly to ensure air was coming into the car’s engine.

A stewards’ report has now confirmed that Tanak left the stop control before he was given the signal to leave, and in the process struck and injured a scrutineer with the front of the car. The scrutineer in question suffered minor injuries.

“On Friday 1st August 2025, after the Stop Control of SS7 (Saarikas 2), car No. 8 arrived at tyre checking and stopped at the direction of a scrutineer. At that moment, the driver of car No. 8 waved his hands asking the scrutineer to move away,” read the report.

“In the meantime, another scrutineer started checking the tyres. When the tyre scanning was almost at the end and before receiving the signal to leave, the driver accelerated abruptly, striking a scrutineer with the front right bumper and causing minor injuries, including bloody scratches to the left knee.”

Ott Tänak, Hyundai World Rally Team

Photo by: Vincent Thuillier / Hyundai Motorsport

Tanak, his co-driver Martin Jarveoja and Hyundai team manager Pablo Marcos attended a hearing where they explained what had happened.

“Mr. Tanak stated that they had an accident during SS7 and the car was suffering from cooling problems. The team had requested the crew to keep the car moving to avoid the overheating," the stewards report continued.

“Mr. Tanak tried to explain the problem to the scrutineer by using hand gestures as it was difficult to communicate. When he thought the checks were finished, he immediately moved from his position without realising that he had hit the scrutineer.

“The driver apologised to the Stewards and stated that he was not aware that the scrutineer had been injured. He stated that had he known that he had hit the scrutineer, he would have stopped immediately. Mr. Tanak also offered to apologise personally to the injured official.”

The penalty means Tanak has dropped from 10th to 28th on the Rally Finland leader, 6m07.2s behind leader Kalle Rovanpera.