Dani Sordo describes what happened in Stage 2 of Rally Japan admitting that the problem on his car existed since Thursday.
The Hyundai driver stopped 16,1 Km into Stage 2 as his i20N Rally1 caught fire. In fact, Gus Greensmith and Jonas Andersson stopped to check if Sordo and Candido Carrera are okay and helped them to put out the fire as the M-Sport crew gave them a fire extinguisher.
From the video camera of Greesmith's car, it is clear that the fire started from the right-hand side of the i20N where the exhaust system is located. Also, there was fire on the rear of his car which means that the fuel system and the hybrid unit worsened the fire progress.
"I reported to my team already from the morning that it was smelling a lot, the car, like fuel, like too much", Sordo said.
"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 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.”
"I never could imagine the car would go on fire completely.
"And when it started from the rear, even when I tried to open the door it was impossible to get in it was so hot smoke and pfft, we didn’t think nothing.
"I just took my phone but I could see the steering wheel and nothing more.
"You can do nothing, unfortunately it was really bad".
Source: DirtFish.com
Photo Credits: Hyundai
Post a Comment