Thierry Neuville has explained the crash that caused his retirement from Croatia Rally on SS11.
Neuville had been leading the event, going onto that stage with a 10.8 second advantage over Toyota’s Elfyn Evans.
But midway through the test he lost the back end of his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 going into a right-handed corner and the left-rear hit some concrete, immediately forcing him to retire from the rally.
And when speaking to DirtFish about the incident, Neuville confirmed that he locked the wheels up under braking.
“To be honest, I struggle a bit to explain it now,” Neuville said.
“I have to check, but especially on the data. I think I just lock up the wheels under braking and had I got in the dust and that’s about it.”
But while it appeared to be an unforced error from Neuville, he doesn’t think it was a case of him driving the car too fast into the corner.
“I don’t know. I didn’t have the feeling like I was driving too fast.
“I think I just probably got into the dirt on the braking, and then with the hard tire on the front it, locked the wheel and I just went a bit straight.
“And once in the dust it’s hard to keep it on the road.
“So it’s a shame. We had a mission this weekend and we were on it, but obviously… Yeah, just not confident all the time and on a rally like this, when you are not 100% confident, the smallest mistakes can [catch you out].”
