World Rally Championship star handed severe punishment for hitting FIA official with car

A motorsport star has been handed a severe penalty after striking an official during an event. The unfortunate incident occurred on stage seven at Rally Finland, the ninth round of the 2025 World Rally Championship.

It turned out to be one to forget for Ott Tanak, the Estonian driver who is leading the standings. He caused some damage to the cooling system of his Hyundai i20 N when he slipped off the road and hit a tree during the stage, which made overheating a real risk when he arrived at stop control.

Tanak was keen to get going again as quickly as possibly to stop that from happening. But the end result was that he set off again before he was given the signal to do so, which unfortunately led to him hitting an FIA scrutineer with the front of his car.

The scrutineer suffered minor injuries as a result of the strike, including "bloody scratches to the left knee". Showing little mercy to Tanak, the stewards decided to give him a five-minute time penalty while also handing him a suspended 35-point deduction in the championship.

Explaining their decision in an official FIA document, the steward wrote: "Car No. 8 [Tanak] 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.

"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."

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In his defence, Tanak had told the stewards that he had tried to communicate with the scrutineer with hand gestures to explain his issue, because verbal communication was difficult. He also said that he was not aware that he had struck anyone, apologised and stated he would have stopped if he had known what had happened.

The stewards added: "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.

"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."