ERC leader Magalhães: Cyprus crash was crazy

Magalhães and co-driver Hugo Magalhães were uninjured when their SEAJETS-ŠKODA Fabia R5 went off the road and rolled down a steep drop. It’s unlikely they will be able to restart on day two due to the level of damage sustained.

“As you can imagine this is a very strange situation with three cars crashing in the same corner,” said the Portuguese. “I had in my pacenotes it was a difficult corner. Because I don’t know the stage I was going completely with the pacenotes but when I saw the co-driver of Kajto [Jarek Baran] I lose my concentration for one or two seconds and it was enough to lose the braking point. When I saw the co-driver I need to see if the co-driver is telling me to keep going or stop because I need to know, I need to look at him and after I have just a few metres to the other corner and I think I didn’t understand the information from pacenotes and because of this I was out and I think it was the same for Bostanci.”

Magalhães was the third driver to go off on the right-hander approximately four kilometres into the 18.48-kilometre Giorgos Kyprianou Lefkara stage, which was cancelled earlier in the day after Deniz Denner’s Mitsubishi Lancer suffered gearbox failure and blocked the road.

“It’s a corner with a crest and after the crest it tightens a lot, no more than 10 kilometres per hour,” Magalhães explained. “I was slow but the problem was the others go straight but I was turning and that’s why I rolled. It’s difficult to say how bad the car is because of where it is but I don’t think it will be possible to restart. It’s just a crazy situation to have three drivers go off the road in the same place.”