A car driven by a member of the public travelling in the opposite direction appeared during Stage 4, which was encountered by WRC2 drivers Sami Pajari and title contender Emil Lindholm. Luckily, an accident was avoided and no injuries were sustained.
The incident occurred moments after M-Sport’s Craig Breen understeered at a right hander and subsequently crashed through an armco barrier. The damage caused to the barriers resulted in the second pass of the test (Stage 7) being cancelled completely.
According to an FIA statement, the stage was red flagged following Breen’s crash before the civilian car appeared on the stage.
A full investigation has been launched to understand how the situation unfolded and to ensure the highest levels of safety are upheld for the future.
“There has been a serious breach of stage safety protocol on SS4 which is currently under investigation,” read a statement from the FIA.
“Following an accident involving car #42 (Breen/Fulton, M-Sport Ford WRT), the stage was red flagged.
“Very quickly after the red flag, a car was identified on the stage. There was no accident or injuries sustained but an investigation is underway.
“A safety barrier was damaged as a result of car 42’s incident, compromising the safety of the stage and therefore leading to the cancellation of SS7.
“Representatives of the FIA WRC Task Force who are attending FORUM8 Rally Japan have been deployed to the Friday afternoon stages, and additional safety cars drove the stages to support the organisers in ensuring highest levels of safety.”
When speaking to the media following the incident, Lindholm suggested that the stage was still open when he encountered the car.
Lindholm was the second driver to see the vehicle after Pajari had overtaken him on the road, while the former stopped to check on the condition of Breen and his co-driver James Fulton.
“It was open - I was driving fast when I saw the car going under the ribbons [at a stage junction],” said Lindholm when asked if there was already a red flag.
“First Breen had gone off and it had dived through the barriers so you could only see the rear of the car. At the time I could only see one person and I didn’t know if it was one of the drivers.
“We decided to stop to check they were fine and both were able to get out of the car. We then continued for some kilometres but that was when I saw the car.
“We were lucky enough to arrive at the point where the car was exiting the stage and we could see the car going under the ribbons at the junction, but Sami Pajari had stopped 200 metres up to that I had to stop to ask him what is going on.
“We decided to not go further because of safety.”
Toyota’s Elfyn Evans leads the rally by three seconds from Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville heading into Saturday’s leg.
