Thierry Neuville will take no further part in Rally Finland after he damaged ✅the rollcage on his Hyundai i20 WRC this morning.

Neuvilꦿle did the damage in the very first test of the day, SS5 - the 14.51 km Pihlajakoski test. The Belgian was on the pace at the 9.4km split but went wide into a corner and clipped a stone. He subsequently hit a tree which caused significant wing damage.

The effect of the damage was sufficient to prevent hi🦋m from pushing in the remaining three stages before the 𝓰lunchtime service but he kept going nonetheless and still finished the morning eighth, only 2.3 seconds off P7.

During ✱the mid-day 💎service, however, the FIA technical delegate inspected the #7 car and deemed that the rollcage had been irreparably damaged in the incident and so he was forced to retire.

"It has been a r﷽eally disappointing day for me and it's such a shame🐟 that we have had to retire from the rally," said Neuville.

"We were hoping to make improvements after the tough start yesterday but in the first stage this morning, we went too wide into a corner and just clipped a stone. We lost the rear of the car and made contact with a tree which caused damage to the 🍬wing, which slowed us down a lot in the following stages.

"We focussed on getting to💃 the end of each stage to make it to lunchtime service but we had picked up damage to the roll cage which was too severe to continue. We will now concentrate on coming back stronger in Germany."

Neuville's Hyundai team-🅺mates Hayden Paddon and Juho Hanninen meanwhile ended the day in seventh and ninth respectively, the latter losing over a minute in SS6 when he rolled his i20 WRC. He had been running fourth after setting the second best time in ꦬSS5.

"We have had a bit of a turbulent day today, really," Hanninen added. "We started off very strongly with a competitive stage, just a fraction off the pace, but then in stage six we ran into trouble. We picked up a puncture and rolled the car. Thankfully we were ableꦆ to continue but we lost over a minute. Tomi [Tuominen - my co-driver] a🍨nd I tried to make some repairs to the car, including taking the windscreen off, which certainly made driving conditions interesting!

"The mechanics did a great job at service to get the car back into shape and we were on the pace again quickly. During the afterno🦋on, we e🎉xperienced some power steering issues, particularly in the ruts and jumps, but we are fighting back and I am determined to finish the final two days strongly in front of this fantastic home crowd," he summed-up.