Hyundai will probably never find the cause of the Sordo fire

This is certainly one of the defining images of the year in the World Rally Championship (WRC). The Hyundai i20 Rally1 hybride appartenant à Dani Sordo et Carlos Carrera a totalement brûlé au cours de la deuxième spéciale du Rally of Japan 2022.

The Spanish crew stopped the car and quickly left the passenger compartment as soon as the first flames emerged. The emergency fire extinguishers were of no use, nor was the assistance provided by Gus Greensmith and Jonas Andersson, the first to stop at the scene of the fire a few minutes later.

The firefighters? It took them over an hour to intervene! The damage had been done then, for too long.

« It smelled like gasoline in the car., explained Dani after returning to the audience. It was very difficult to breathe. My eyes were watering. Around the 16th kilometer, there were suddenly flames in the passenger compartment. We immediately stopped and tried to stop the fire.

There must have been a leak somewhere, because there (fire) kept repeating. It was a little scary and above all very sad to see our car burn like that. We had to wait an hour and ten minutes before the firefighters arrived, but it was already far too late. »

How could the fire have occurred and could the hybrid system be involved in this fire? We will probably never know, as Julien Moncet, the boss of Hyundai in WRC.

“We have no data, no data, because everything burned. The car has not yet returned (Friday evening) to the service park. We certainly have an idea of ​​what may have caused the fire based on Dani's comments, but to be 100% sure of the origin (of the disaster), I think unfortunately we will never know. »

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