If there’s any greater pain than crashing out of a race, it’s crashing when you’re so close to finishing that you can see the finish line.
World Rally Championship-2 driver Quentin Gilbert was the unluckiest of them all on the big Fafe jump on Stage 16 of this weekend’s Rally Portugal.
Gilbert’s Skoda Fabia R5 was just a little too nose-heavy on the landing of a huge jump, going grille-first into the dirt. Gilbert’s car somersaulted hatch-over-nose within less than a mile of the finish line for the stage.
Worst of all, you can see the finish line at the next tall crest as you’re flying over this jump, inevitably showing Gilbert what he couldn’t have right before he wrecked. You can see just how close it is on WRC driver Jari-Matti Latvala’s onboard:
Gilbert was so close to the finish line! There are few feelings on this planet worse than that. While there were 19 stages in total at Rally Portugal this year, it’s still devastating to be so close to the end of one and not make it there.
Fortunately, both Gilbert and his codriver Renaud Jamoul were fine after the roll, albeit a little stiff for understandable reasons.
[H/T waterfowl]