16 Oct 12

Over and out

In a month when Petter Solberg's bid for Rallye de France Alsace glory ended against a telegraph pole, WRC.com recalls five other cases of a driver retiring in somewhat unusual circumstances.

Roast lamb, New Zealand 1997: Carlos Sainz had to retire his Ford Escort WRC after hitting a sheep at full speed, which was in the middle of the road after a crest. The car wasn’t able to continue, but the smell of roast lamb was apparently delicious.

We must stop meeting like this, Jordan 2008: The Citroen C4 of Sebastien Loeb was driving out of one stage, the similar car of Conrad Rautenbach (pictured wearing cap) was heading into the same stage. Somewhat embarrassingly, they met in the middle of the access road. Both drivers were forced to retire from the day.

Who turned the lights out? Corsica 2007: Nicolas Bernardi was giving the all-new Suzuki SX4 WRC its debut in Corsica, and everything was looking good until he spotted the engine temperature warning light coming on, so he switched the car off to preserve the one and only engine. A pity then that the light was only a harmless hydraulic warning instead.

So near and yet... Poland 2009: Ford’s Jari-Matti Latvala was set for a safe second place on Rally Poland, before crashing out against an oil barrel on the final spectator superspecial stage: right under the nose of his team boss Malcolm Wilson, plus Ford senior management.

Drive like you stole it, Dakar 1988: Former world champion Ari Vatanen was leading the Dakar Rally, admittedly not a round of the WRC, comfortably in his Peugeot 405 T16, until the rally reached a rest halt in Bamako, Mali. Unfortunately, he was able to go no further because the car somehow got stolen - handing victory to another former WRC title winner Juha Kankkunen.

Photo: McKlein