Pre-event testing in rallying is a tightrope act.
You can’t take it easy. Back off and you won’t figure out if the car is set up properly, your instinct for pacenotes the first time around is on point or whether you’ve found your own limits yet.
Two drivers pushed on to find those limits preparing for Latvia’s World Rally Championship round and ended up crashing. One was a young rookie preparing for their debut. The other was a world champion.
Ott Tänak’s appearance at Rally Estonia had two purposes – one, being Hyundai’s flag-bearer at his home round. The second was arguably more important in a WRC sense – it was effectively a high-speed test session for Latvia, as he looked to hunt down team-mate Thierry Neuville in the title race.
That ‘test’ came to a shuddering halt when landing from a jump, his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 went sideways, rolled over onto its side and slid down the road and eventually flipping over into the trees.
Tänak destroyed a car when testing ahead of Rally Latvia
Meanwhile in Latvia, a driver on a pathway towards the WRC was preparing for her big debut. Enola Hsieh hopes to reach the top while also breaking barriers – she’s one the verge of becoming the first Asian female to tackle a World Rally Championship-level program in a generation.
Hsieh was originally studying to become a doctor, undertaking a clinical internship at Johns Hopkins University, one of the world’s most renowned institutions for pre-med education. That naturally invokes an Adrien Fourmaux comparison – switching from learning how to treat patients to developing surgical precision behind the wheel.
She got the right team behind her too: she drives for GRX, the rally team owned by two-time world champion Marcus Grönholm. After moving halfway across the globe from Asia to Northern Europe, she started off by contesting the highly competitive Finnish championship, honing her skills behind the wheel on some of the fastest stages in the world.
Enola has been learning her rallying craft in Finland
Everything was pointing towards one goal – taking on some of the World Rally Championship’s fastest gravel stage in Latvia. A project years in the making was finally set to pay off – until a fateful right-hand corner during pre-event testing changed everything.
All it takes is one small misjudgment for a mistake with outsized consequences to follow. An optimistic pacenote meant an impact with a bank which sent her car spiralling. Sadly, there would be no WRC Latvia.
Two drivers, days apart, practicing for the same rally with the same objective – push to find the limits of what the car can do and be ready for an all-important WRC event in Latvia. Regardless of experience – it can happen to everyone.
Tänak shook it off quickly – with the advantage of driving for a manufacturer team at the top level, Hyundai had another car ready to go for him in Latvia, which he drove to a podium finish. No such luck for Hsieh – her car couldn’t be fixed during the short period of time between her test and the rally itself.
Unfortunately Enola's WRC debut has had to wait, but her time will come
But it’s definitely not the end of the road for Hsieh – she’ll be back behind the wheel soon and resuming her journey towards the highest level of rallying. After all, fortune favors the brave – and you need plenty of bravery to succeed in this sport. Just ask Ott Tänak.
Brave drivers make mistakes. They learn, they go again and they improve from it. Mārtiņš Sesks summed that up best after he lost a maiden podium finish at the rally Hsieh had hoped to make her debut on.
“From wins and good results, you don’t learn as much from hard times.”
Tänak was knocked back repeatedly on his eventual journey to becoming world champion. Crashes and demotions were followed by the prize every rally driver aspires to achieve. Setbacks are part of the journey. Hsieh’s groundbreaking debut has been delayed for now – but her journey to make it to the WRC will be picking up speed again soon.
