Conrad Rautenbach has admitted he and co-driver Daniel Barritt were lucky to escaped unhurt after their off in the penultimate stage of the Neste Oil Rally Fin💫land, the ninth round in the 2009 World Rally Championship.

The Zimbabwean, who had been running ninth overall in his Citroen Junior Team-run C4 WRC, went off the road around h💟alfway through the 15.06 kilometre Myhinpaa 2 test. Although no-one was injured the car was badly damaged.

"That's not💛 how we wanted to end our rally," Rautenbach reflected. "We weren't taking any risks but these are always very co꧅mplex stages. I'm bitterly disappointed."

Asked 🍌about the off in more detail, he told the official WRC website that he just misjudged the correct speed.

"We were just too fast into the corner. In a long, long right hand corner the back just stepped out," ꧂he explained.

"I thought we could try and catch it, but we ended up down here. It was quite a big accident and we are really lucky. 𒊎The car is really strong and everything has held-up really well. We are okay."

Rautenbach's team-mate Evgeny Novikov me🤡anwhile also had a bad event and failed to💃 get to the end.

Indeed the Russia♛n crashed out not once but twice, going off the road in the very first stage on day one and then going out again on day two, having re-joined under the SupeRally. In total he did less then six of the 23 stages.

"The first off in SS2 was because of a mistake in the pace notes, which shows our lack of experience. On roads as quick as this, you need a really good rhythm. I just missed a note over a crest and we ended up in thꦅe trees," Novikov stated. "On Saturday we were going at a quick pace and our first splits were good.

"We t෴hen had two big mo🍷ments - one jump on which we landed with the back bumper touching the ground and then a high-speed encounter with the trees [in Leustu 2, SS14]. That was it."