Circumstances brought the iconic pairing back together for one weekend, but neither Sebastien Ogier nor Julien Ingrassia expected their Rally Finland campaign to end prematurely in what will likely go down as the biggest scare of the nine-time WRC champion’s career.
While leading the rally last Saturday, the pair suddenly left the road and their Toyota ploughed through the trees in a spectacular crash. The impact was severe, but the safety features and strength of the Rally1 car most likely saved the lives of the two Frenchmen, who spent the night in hospital as a precaution. Ogier was the more badly shaken, as Ingrassia revealed.
“I saw Seb get out, I realised I wasn’t injured, so I followed the procedure,” Ingrassia told L’Équipe. “I pressed the car’s OK button, which tells them we don’t need emergency assistance and allows the stage to continue. But by the time I’d done that, I saw Seb lie down in the grass and pass out.
“From that point on, the accident took on a whole new dimension. I immediately activated the emergency beacon and went over to Seb. His eyes weren’t blinking anymore – there was no sound, no picture. With the help of two or three spectators, we held his head still while I fanned him with my pace notes. It was a worrying moment.
“I’d never dealt with anything like that in my life, but I knew it was important to stay calm. After raising the alarm, I called the team to give them a medical assessment of what I was seeing. I also switched off the car because there was a risk it could catch fire. Little by little, with people talking to him and everyone around him, Seb came back to his senses. That’s when the emergency services arrived.”
By Sunday morning, Toyota had issued a reassuring update on the crew, who will now take time to recover. Vincent Landais is expected to return alongside Ogier for his remaining WRC appearances this season.
Ingrassia, who had not competed in the championship for five years, admitted that “the impact was heavy” after entering the corner at “around 140 km/h”. At this stage, there is no indication that either a technical failure or driver error was responsible.
“When you’re in the car, you look up and all you see are trees in front of you. Fortunately, we went through the smaller ones. We hit relatively young trees that we managed to break. The latest generation of cars is incredibly strong, and that really helped us.
“We’ve looked into what happened at that corner. As far as we know, there was no failure on the part of the car, the driver or the co-driver. A rut had formed in the corner and launched the car to the left instead of allowing it to turn right. That’s why the onboard footage looks so strange.”
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