The Hyundai pairing were sitting in fourth head into stage five, the final test of Friday morning’s loop, when drama struck.
Lappi ploughed into trees lining the gravel road after misjudging a right-hander. The impact caused significant damage to the i20 N and it is unlikely the car can be repaired to return on Saturday.
Both driver and co-driver emerged from the crash relatively unscathed. Lappi suffered a swollen ankle in the crash, while co-driver Ferm was transferred to hospital for a precautionary X-ray on his ribs.
Asked about the frustration of retiring from his home WRC round, 2017 Finland winner Lappi said: “Okay, over here it feels bad [to retire] but the first sentence from my mouth when I saw Janne was that ‘it is good that we are alive’ because it was really scary when I saw the trees.
“I’m okay. My ankle is swollen a bit, but it is not broken. Janne is now in hospital having an X-ray for his ribs, no drama, just for precaution.”
Lappi explained that an optimistic pacenote had caused the error that led to the crash and confirmed that the wet conditions were not a factor in the incident.
“It was just a pacenote error, [it was] too optimistic for the right-hander. The angle was wrong,” he added.
“On the left before, I lost the rear a little bit so I didn’t really have a good line in terms of that. But I had no chance to do the right, so we went straight out.”
Source: Autosport