The 2023 WRC season marked Ott Tänak's sole year with M-Sport Ford World Rally Team, paired once again with co-driver Martin Järveoja. At Round 7, held 22–25 June 2023 around Lake Naivasha, Kenya, car #8 crossed the line 6th overall — a result that in Safari Rally terms amounts to a genuine accomplishment. Spark Model's officially licensed 1:43 scale model locks that specific moment in resin.
Ford Puma Rally1: WRC's Hybrid Generation
Built by M-Sport Ford to the Rally1 regulations introduced for the 2022 WRC season, the Puma Rally1 is based on the silhouette of the Ford Puma road car. Every Rally1 competitor from 2022 onwards runs a standardised Compact Dynamics 100 kW hybrid unit, mounted between the petrol engine and gearbox. Combined with the 1.6-litre turbocharged inline-four, total output reaches approximately 500 bhp. The Rally1 package represents a distinct regulatory chapter, separating the current generation from all previous WRC machinery.
Tänak at Naivasha: Surviving the Safari
The Safari Rally Kenya is consistently one of the most attrition-heavy rounds on the WRC calendar, with rocky terrain and unpredictable conditions around Lake Naivasha destroying machinery at a rate unlike any other event. In 2023, the rally was won by Sébastien Ogier and Vincent Landais in a Toyota GR Yaris Rally1. Ott Tänak — a former world champion in 2019 — and Martin Järveoja brought car #8 home in 6th place, a points finish that required mechanical reliability and calculated restraint across four days of competition. The 2023 season was the only year Tänak ran under M-Sport Ford colours, making this livery and number combination exclusive to a single campaign.
Spark Model: Official WRC Resin at 1:43
Spark Model holds the official WRC licence for 1:43 rally replicas and is the established reference for collectors in this segment. The model is constructed in resin, the standard material for Spark's 1:43 WRC range, allowing sharper surface definition than diecast at this scale. The predominantly blue M-Sport Ford livery, race number 8 and period-correct sponsor graphics are reproduced directly from the 2023 specification. This is the 1:43 scale model car that documents Tänak's Safari Rally Kenya appearance precisely.
Rally1 Era in the Display Cabinet
This model sits naturally alongside other Spark 1:43 WRC Rally1-era subjects. The M-Sport Ford team-mate car, #7 of Pierre-Louis Loubet and Nicolas Gilsoul from the same 2023 season, forms the most direct pairing. Collectors tracing Tänak's career may also wish to place the 2022 Hyundai i20 N Rally1 and the subsequent 2024 Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 in sequence. For Safari Rally Kenya completists, the 2023 event winner — the Ogier/Landais Toyota — provides the race-result context on the same shelf.
