The most intense situation occurred with Hyundai’s Ott Tänak, who crashed heavily on the Saarijärvi special stage, the second stage of the morning.
Shortly before Tänak’s crash, his teammate Thierry Neuville also had an incident. He went wide in a corner, but Neuville had incredibly good luck. The Belgian ended up on a forest road, where there were no rocks or trees.
“Just blind corner. I break far too early, and I reaccelerate and then I break again, and then it was too late, so I just went straight on the grass. The engine stalled, and we just slipped down that road. We lost 13 seconds over there,” Neuville told RallyJournal.com.
Neuville claimed that he knew the corner could be safely straightened. However, it’s unlikely that the Belgian could be certain there were no rocks.
“I knew there was a road to go straight in case of an incident. But that’s also what made it very difficult to see where the road was. There were no trees, and it was actually very, very challenging to see,” Neuville recalled.
Neuville managed to finish the Saarijärvi stage and only later heard about Tänak and Järveoja’s crash.
“First of all, we had very little information. So we were just waiting to know if they both were okay. And I mean, we know Ott is fine. For Martin, we have no more news at the moment, but it seems like it’s nothing to worry about,” Neuville revealed.
