Thierry Neuville explains the incident he had in Stage 7 at Rally Chile which led him to retire from the race while his focus is already on Rally Italia Sardegna.
Neuville was sixth overall at the end of Stage 6 and was fighting with Adrien Fourmaux, Sebastien Ogier and Sami Pajari for the lowest place of the podium. However, the Belgian was forced to retire in Stage 7 when he hit a compression resulting in losing control of his i20N and rolling his car several times. He and Martijn Wydaeghe are unharmed after this massive crash, but Hyundai Motorsport confirmed that its crew will not restart on Sunday under the SuperRally regulations due to the heavy damaged that carried their car after this accident. This means that it is game over for Neuville and Wydaeghe in Chile as both of them are already looking forward to Rally Italia Sardegna which will be held in three weeks.
"I came into a compression slightly too fast, and I got kicked out of the line and we ended up in the middle of the road", Neuville said at the end of Saturday.
"We tried to push hard this morning to claim back some positions, that was our target for the day because we had nothing to lose.
"I underestimated the compression and that was basically the end of it.
"Luckily, both Martijn and I are fine, but the main thing now is to reset and focus on Sardinia."
Photo Credits: Hyundai
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