The Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT driver Dani Sordo was forced to end the final rally of the year in Rally Japan quite early on as his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 caught fire during the opening stage of Friday.
Sordo has explained he has smelled fuel already during the Thursday but the issue was not solved before heading out on the Friday stage, just around 16 kilometres in to the stage smoke started to pour in to the cockpit, the fire started in the rear of the car but quite soon the whole car was up in flame.
He and co-driver Cándido Carrera escaped unharmed from the fire, the crew did assist the fire marshals to extinguish the fire but they couldn´t save the car.
In an article published by DirtFish.com, Sordo explained what happened: “I’ve never seen something like this. Yesterday already there was smoke a lot but we didn’t know and also in the stage now we smell a lot and I was a little bit crying because of the smoke inside because it was really like petrol, like fuel.”
“After it was going more and more and more and now at one point we see the fire inside the car. When we brake for this corner we just see the smoke coming in the front so it was total, really fast the car was completely smoking so I just went to put the handbrake and tried to take the fire out.”
“It was a small fire in the rear, I tried to take it out, but under the battery or somewhere it was like a big one already, burning from some meters before, and I couldn’t stop with some small extinguisher and also the next car [Gus Greensmith] was coming, I asked for the extinguisher but when you start to have fire it’s very difficult. I was just trying all that I can to stop the fire but it was impossible. I’m so sorry to the team to lose the car.”
