New Toyota star Ott Tänak revealed in Monte Carlo that he had effectively retired from the WRC when he was first dropped by M-Sport.
The Estonian was shown the door by Malcolm Wilson's team after a turbulent 2012 season and has admitted that, at that point, he turned his back on the WRC.
"In 2013 I had no plans to come back,” he revealed. “I was retired and finished. I started my own company, I started my new job. Let's say I was not pushing to come back.
"I drove a Group N car at home, but I did it for fun. This is an expensive sport and at the top level I knew it wasn't possible just to do it a bit, so I had no plans. But somehow we got some new opportunities, some new chances and then it came back."
He was given a career lifeline in 2014 by M-Sport and DMACK with a partial programme.
Success there led to his being reinstated in to the main M-Sport team the following year. Though he was demoted back to the satellite DMACK car for 2016, he earned another frontline M-Sport chance last year and for the first time became a WRC event winner and outside title contender.
"Then Tänak accepted the offer from Toyota. His second place finish in the Yaris on this year’s Monte Carlo Rally was the first time he had driven a non-M-Sport car on a WRC round since winning the Production WRC in a Pirelli Star Driver Lancer Evo X on Rally GB 2010.
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