WRC: Tanak confident of another star showing in Portugal

Ott Tanak believes he can produce another star performance on his second World Rally Car outing of the 2014 season on this week's Rally of Portugal.

After a year on the sidelines, the Estonian battled for a podium finish on his World Rally Championship return in Sweden in February and took fifth place. He then missed out on winning last weekend's Fafe Rally Sprint by just half a second to world champion Sebastien Ogier, despite it being his first gravel outing in a World Rally Car in more than a year.

The Estonian stays in the M-Sport Ford Fiesta RS WRC for the Portuguese WRC round, which starts on Thursday night.

"I want to go fast and improve on what I did in Sweden," Tanak said. "But the first target is to minimize the risk and get to the finish.

"Fafe was good for me, it was a good road and a good test – everything was perfect for us there. The only problem for me on this event is that I didn't do it last year which means I had to the recce in the rain, which makes it difficult to know how good the notes are."

Asked for a prediction for his fourth Portugal start, he said: "I don't want to make a target like a podium, it would make it too much on the limit. We'll try to stay right behind the podium guys and maybe we can be there [on the podium]."