IRISH rally driver Craig Breen escaped unharmed after his Citroen car caught fire during yesterday's WRC event in Turkey.
The Waterford man was forced to abandon his vehicle and retire from the event after it became engulfed in flames at the Turquia Rally.
Breen and his co-driver remained in the car for several minutes and attempted to locate the problem before it caught fire.
Footage shows emergency services at the scene and the vehicle, which cost more than one million euro, completely burnt out.
#rallyturkey El momento mas lamentablemente de la jornada, arde el #Citroen de @Craig_Breen luego de que fueran uno de los cinco punteros diferentes que tuvo la prueba turca. #Rally #RallyTurquia pic.twitter.com/yX8qbXD73J
— TIEMPORALLY (@TIEMPORALLY) September 15, 2018
It was a weekend of bad luck for the 28-year-old, as he lost time earlier in the weekend due to a rear tire failure.
However, he’ll consider himself lucky to be left unharmed following yesterday’s incident.
Craig is the son of Ray Breen, a national champion in Irish rallying.
He was the 2012 WRC Super 2000 world rally champion and was also the WRC Academy champion in 2011,
Posting on social media, Breen said: "Yesterday was one of the toughest days I’ve had [sic] Fire is one of the biggest fears we all have in this game, and we did all in our power to try and avoid it. I felt it in my heart yesterday, something I know so many of my friends had put in countless hours to create was being destroyed in front of us and we could do nothing.
"I am so sorry to everybody in the team, it was completely out of our control. To Ott and Martin, thank you for being so good at that difficult time.. This season is being so difficult, but we have to remain positive, we have set a fastest stage time in all the last three events, and we led the rally here, so the speed is there. Just need a bit of luck our way, nothing more.. More difficult things have been thrown in my path before, we’ll not let this run upset it all."
