While most of the racing series including Formula One remain in hibernation amid the winter break, the ongoing Monte Carlo Rally has been delivering some much-needed action to the motorsport community.
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On Friday, French Rally driver, Adrien Fourmaux, suffered one of the biggest crashes in recent times as his M-Sport Ford rolled off the cliff, but, quite miraculously, both the driver and co-driver, Alexandre Coria, walked out of it unscathed.
What caused the accident?
Looking at the replay, it seems as if Adrien went in too fast especially amid the insane dust triggered by the cars ahead. In doing so, the Frenchman lost a bit of grip as he ended up clipping the front-right of his car into the rock face of the mountain, triggering a nasty roll off the cliff.
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Thankfully, neither of the drivers were injured, as Adrien, eventually, took to social media to apologize for disappointing his hardworking crew.
“I am thinking of the entire team who worked relentlessly, day and night, to allow us to evolve in the best possible car. To the team, I am sorry for this mistake. We will not leave tomorrow. We will work even harder to come back strong in Sweden,” his apologetic statement read.
M-Sport team principal admits end of rally
M-Sport team principal, Richard Millener, openly admitted that the car had suffered terminal damage, meaning, Fourmaux’s race is all but over.
“He has had a very heavy accident by the looks of things,” he said according to Motorsport. “From what I can see it looks like quite a dirty corner he has gone to cut the line.
The new safety cell did its job 🙏
But it looks like it’s game over for Fourmaux after this huge shunt 💥#WRC #RallyMonteCarlopic.twitter.com/9EB40QdLgJ
— Autosport (@autosport) January 21, 2022
“And I guess the cars in front have pulled a bit of mud out, and he just went head-on into a mountain, and it has just flipped him over the barrier and 20 to 30 meters down the bank. The car looks fairly heavily damaged so I suspect that will be the end of the rally for this one which is a real shame.”
Overall, this reminded many of the Robert Kubica incident that pretty much wrecked his entire racing career. The steel railings pierced through the car and into him, partially severing his arm. Thankfully, the new ground-breaking safety cell managed to keep the two drivers safe this time around.
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