Which rally gave Ott Tanak his first WRC event win in 2017?

Rally Italia Sardegna gave Ott Tänak his first WRC event win in 2017. Held on the gravel roads of Sardinia from 8 to 11 June, the rally was the seventh round of that year’s championship and the 14th running of the Italian island event.

Tänak and co-driver Martin Järveoja drove a Ford Fiesta WRC for M-Sport World Rally Team. They took control during Saturday’s stages and held on through the final day to beat Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttila’s Toyota Yaris WRC by 12.3 seconds. Thierry Neuville and Nicolas Gilsoul finished third.

The victory was a major breakthrough for Tänak after several seasons in which speed had been accompanied by crashes, reliability problems and missed opportunities. It also marked the first WRC win for the Tänak–Järveoja pairing and the first world-level rally victory by an Estonian crew since Markko Märtin’s 2004 Rally Catalunya success.

The event is often shortened to Rally Sardinia or Rally d’Italia, but the official 2017 name was Rally Italia Sardegna. The other options were also WRC events, yet none was Tänak’s first championship rally victory.