Hyundai has called for a “clear and transparent” investigation to understand why its World Rally Championship driver Ott Tanak was delayed by a fallen inflatable promotional arch at Rally Latvia.
Stage 14 provided one of the strangest incidents of the season when a promotional arch halted fourth-placed Tanak.
Tanak and co-driver Martin Jarveoja collected the arch that was lying across the road after Toyota’s Elfyn Evans clipped the inflatable structure following a wild moment during his pass, which caused the arch to deflate and collapse.
The stage wasn’t red-flagged before Tanak arrived on the scene, and as a result, his i20 became entangled in the arch. The stage was eventually halted to clear the incident while Tanak, Takamoto Katsuta and Adrien Fourmaux were issued nominal times, having been caught up in the red flag aftermath.
A frustrated Tanak took aim at race control for not stopping the stage sooner.
“I think this exactly describes how we are in safe hands in terms of race control. Probably they were having a nice meal and good wine when on the cameras you could see the road is blocked and there is a car coming. Well done race control, you are really taking care of us," said Tanak on the television broadcast.
“We are ok but f****** hell, you could see the road was blocked and you keep it running. Hopefully, it was a good wine.”
Event organisers have since issued the following statement to explain what happened: “Car number 33 [Elfyn Evans] left the stage, damaging the supports of an inflatable branding arch towards the end of SS14 on Saturday afternoon at Tet Rally Latvia.
“It was clear there was damage to the arch and two staff, positioned specifically to ensure the safety of the arch moved immediately to remove it from the road. They were not able to do this prior to the arrival of car number 8 [Ott Tanak].”
While the incident ultimately didn’t affect the leaderboard, Hyundai team principal Cyril Abiteboul wants answers to ensure this incident isn’t repeated in the future.
“What's bizarre is the time it took for anyone who is responsible for monitoring the situation and assessing what to do,” Abiteboul told Motorsport.com.
“We are in a world of extreme connectivity, extreme agility, and I think that we should make sure that we have the devices that are needed in order to red flag when there is something that is totally blocking the road. They [Ott and Martin] had absolutely no escape, nowhere to go.
“The FIA has reached out [to us] and I think we really need to get a proper investigation of what has happened and what is the existing system.
“Was the system in default because of the plane situation [the WRC’s TV relay aircraft was grounded in the afternoon due to a technical issue]? But if that's the case, there should be contingency measures.
“I would call for, simply, a clear and transparent investigation about the steps that will be taken to make sure that it doesn't happen again in the future, because it's very clear that there was enough time to red flag the stage.”
When asked if he felt Tanak would receive a penalty for his comments directed at race control, Abiteboul added: “I hope that common sense will prevail rather than spending time about a penalty. We should spend more resources and time and effort in understanding how it can happen or how it could be avoided in the future.”
