Motorsport throws up many emotions for spectators; we certainly don’t want racing drivers to roll their Ford rally cars at over 100mph, but my goodness it’s hard to not to revel in this spectacular footage. This particular piece of film is quite special in that it features frames from a spectator’s camera moments before it is annihalited by the green Ford, then in car footage of the crash, and then finally outside footage of the huge roll.
Mikko Hirvonen was leading Rally Finland when he crashed out yesterday, destroying the Abu Dhabi sponsored Ford but leaving both himself and co-driver, Jarmo Lehtinen, unharmed. In the open-chequebook days of the WRC these sorts of spills were a bit more common, one gets the sense that drivers are forced to dance a fine line between looking after the team’s budget and shaving milliseconds off the clock. This in a sport that recently saw stalwarts Subaru retire amid financial meltdown, amongst others.
Interestingly, Mini this week announced it will return to world rallying, with it’s much anticipated Countryman model. More on that later.
Ciro De Siena
