Hyundai WRC Car Burns To The Ground After Scary Rally Portugal Roll

WRC is one of the most dangerous motorsport series in the world and we were reminded of this today when Hayden Paddon rolled his Hyundai i20 WRC on SS5 of Rally Portugal. But, something we don’t see very often is cars catching fire. That’s exactly what happened to his Hyundai and it was completely destroyed. Video of the crash has emerged, as have pictures of the scarily burned Hyundai.

Paddon and co-driver John Kennard were unhurt in the crash and resulting fire. They were only able to save their crash helmets from the car before it burned to the ground in less than five minutes.

Amazingly, Ford Fiesta RS driver Ott Tanak dramatically rolled his car down the same hill just a short while later, landing close to the burning wreckage that was formerly known as Paddon’s Hyundai WRC machine.

Tanak’s car also set alight after the crash but locals were able to help extinguish the flames and his Ford was not badly damaged. The stage was cancelled and the remaining drivers drove through it non-competitively.

Kris Meeke leads the way at Rally Portugal on his return to the WRC, with a 31.9 second advantage over Sebastien Ogier after day two.