The reason for Ott Tänak’s retirement from Rally Poland has now become clear after DirtFish tracked him down on stage two, Stańczyki – he hit a deer while driving at top speed.
Tänak had hobbled to the side of the road with significant front-end damage but without an apparent reason for the stoppage.
It now transpires that on a flat-out straight, a deer jumped directly in front of Tänak’s Hyundai i20 N Rally1 while traveling at 189km/h (117mph), causing huge damage to the front of his car.
At the end of the straight, he pulled off to the side of the road next to a spectator area and retired.
Tänak rued that the deer had jumped directly in front of him out of nowhere, rather than already being on the road: “If it was standing on the road, I would not have hit it,” he told DirtFish.
After pulling over Tänak spent time inspecting the engine of his i20, which he is hoping isn’t damaged and can be used again both later on this rally and future rounds. Manufacturer teams are limited to two engines per car per season.
“It’s just to make sure, because everything is broken from the front, to make sure there is no dirt or dust going in the engine,” said Tänak. “It’s a new engine so we don’t want to damage it.”
Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja were both unharmed in their collision with a deer
It continues a run of horrid luck for Tänak in Poland – a penultimate-stage puncture in 2016 robbed him of a near-certain maiden WRC win and a year later he retired from the lead with accident damage.
With Tänak out of the rally, the lead has been taken by his Hyundai team-mate Andreas Mikkelsen, who has a 2.2s advantage over unexpected podium contender Mārtiņš Sesks is the hybrid-less customer Ford Puma Rally1.
