Ott Tänak and co-driver Raigo Molder escaped injury after a terrifying crash at Rally Guanajuato Mexico this morning when their car plunged into a reservoir and sank.
They managed to free themselves from their Ford Fiesta RS before it disappeared below the surface. Although shocked, the Estonian pair have returned to the rally base in León and are recovering from the ordeal at their team hotel.
Tänak, pictured above in yesterday’s shakedown, used his Twitter account to say: “We are both feeling better now after a hot shower, thanks to everyone for messages of support.”
The accident happened less than three kilometres into Friday morning’s opening Los Mexicanos test in the mountains near Guanajuato, where the rally started last night.
Malcolm Wilson, team director at Tänak’s M-Sport squad, said details of the accident were still unclear.
“The most important thing is that the boys are okay,” he told WRC Live. “They are shaken and a bit damp. We’ve sent them back to the hotel to get themselves sorted out. For now they are too shocked to talk about what happened.”
Wilson admitted he feared for the lives of the duo.
“There’s a huge sense of relief in the team. Nobody in the team really knew what had happened. Organisers sent a helicopter to try to find them, but they couldn’t be seen. By then we had studied the tracking system and could see the reservoir beside where they went off, so you start to fear the worst.
“I suppose the next thing is to try and retrieve the car. It is not visible, so that gives you an indication of how deep it is there,” explained Wilson.