Q&A with Juho Hanninen (+ video)

Juho Hänninen was chasing his 12th victory in the Intercontinental Rally Challenge on Rallye Sanremo when he crashed out on the 44-kilometre Ronde night stage on Friday.

Firstly, how are you and your co-driver Mikko Markkula?

“Yeah we are both okay, there is no problems for us. Just the car.”

What actually happened?

“It was a third or fourth gear left-hander, we were too fast and we broke through the barrier, rolled once and landed on the roof of a garage. There was some concrete there and it broke the roll cage. We were two metres from the road.”

How far into the stage were you?

“It was about 25 kilometres so more than half distance. I was feeling good. We had made some changes to the car and things felt better. I took the first part of the stage quite easy to save the tyres to start to push in the second half. I was pushing more to catch Basso but maybe it was too much.”

What was your reaction when you got out of the car?

“Of course it’s disappointing. When you want to win you try but this time [Giandomenico] Basso was too strong. I was not going to catch him just by driving normally, which is what it’s like when you have good local drivers so I had to take risks and what happened, happened.”

Do you have any plans for the rest of today?

“I will go to watch some stages then go home tomorrow. I think Jan will be second, I don’t see him pushing to catch Basso because the gap is too much.”