The FIA rally director, Andrew Wheatley, says that the federation is thinking of improving the cockpit safety after the sudden loss of Craig Breen and admits that the last one's accident is still under investigation despite the many data that they have received.
Craig Breen was killed in a testing accident on Thursday 13 April during his preparations ahead of Croatia Rally. The fatal accident happened when the Irishman went off the road near Lobor and his i20N hit a wooden pole which was passed via the side window and hit Breen on head. The Croatian authorities have completed their investigations while Hyundai Motorsport published a press release a week ago in which the team stated that the i20N did not carry any problem and Breen's crash was not caused by the weather conditions nor a tyre issue. In addition to that, the team stated that he was was driving at low speeds, therefore there are many questions how this incident happened. However, FIA continues its own investigation for Breen's crash, but they have not ended up with a conclusion yet.
"There is an ongoing investigation which will continue", Wheatley said.
"We are not in a position to say one way or another if there is any future action to be taken.
"I can assure you that there is a dedicated team in the FIA that is investigating every opportunity to understand how we go forward.
"The specifics with regard to Craig's accident are very unique and I'm not sure there is a simple fix to that.
"We have a lot of information but we are not in a position to share the results.
"We can't bring Craig back but we can try to make sure we can take every action that we can do.
"I think the reality is we have quite strong controls on testing and there is a limited amount days the teams can use and they have to make applications to the organisers and to the FIA to plan these days.
"There are a series of testing safety guidelines that are in place but obviously the level of safety for private testing is not the same as we have on a WRC event which is planned years in advance.
"The learning from this tragic accident is we need to understand what could be done to make the 10% possibility into an 8% or a 6% possibility.
"I think we will never stop learning and hopefully we can use the experience and the information to understand what small changes we can make".
Source: Motorsport.com
Photo Credits: Hyundai
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