Al Qassimi rues early Japan crash

Khalid Al Qassimi has described his disappointment after crashing out of Rally Japan on Friday’s opening stage.

The BP Ford Abu Dhabi driver was 11th overall following Thursday evening’s two runs through the Sapporo Dome superspecial when he left the road on a right-hander 1.2 kilometres into the 26.92-kilometre Iwanke Long 1 test.

Although he and co-driver Michael Orr were uninjured, their Ford Focus WRC suffered major damage to the extent they won’t be able to restart under SupeRally regulations on day two.

“It’s frustrating and very disappointing because I crashed early in Finland and this just happened in a very short space of time,” said Al Qassimi. “If there were a couple of centimetres more on the road, even with the car sliding, we would have come back but it’s so narrow that when the car started to slide it quickly went into a ditch.”

Al Qassimi accepted the blame for the crash, which occurred while he was travelling in fourth gear.

“First we had a left-hand corner, medium fast,” said the Abu Dhabi pilot. “We slide a little bit but I didn’t want that corner to give me a scare so I kept the same pace. The next corner, a right-three plus, in the middle of it we were a little bit fast, the car slide onto the loose and into a ditch. It broke a calliper and went like a spin and back into the ditch, hit the tree and knocked the tree down and back into the road. The big shock was the car was upside down on Michael’s side and we couldn’t get ourselves out of the car at first because it was messed up and on its side.”

Al Qassimi’s car will be returned to the Ford team’s base in the UK where it will be rebuilt in time for his next WRC event, Rallye de France, from September 30-October 3.

“On my side the car looks fine but when we rolled we hit the tree and there was a big impact on Michael’s side,” said Al Qassimi. “In one corner it looks worse than Finland but overall, Finland was worse.”

Before Rallye de France, Al Qassimi will travel to Lebanon for round five of the FIA Middle East Rally Championship, which runs from September 17-19.