Sebastien Ogier had spent two days making Rally Finland look straightforward. He led from the opening stage on Friday, held a 20.9-second advantage over Sami Pajari after SS16 of 20, and was closing on what would have been a third win on the fastest gravel event in the World Rally Championship.
It ended less than a mile from the finish of SS17 Vastila 2. His Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 left the road and rolled into the trees. The live feed cut immediately and the stage was red-flagged, then cancelled.
An FIA statement set out the initial picture: "During SS17 'Vastila' at WRC Rally Finland, the crew of car #1, Sebastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia, were involved in a high speed incident. Both crew members received immediate medical attention at the scene. The driver will be airlifted by helicopter to a local hospital, while the co-driver will be transported by ambulance for further examination."
Toyota Gazoo Racing confirmed later that both men had come out of it well. "We are pleased to report that the results of the hospital examinations for both Seb and Julien have been positive," the team said. "Due to the heavy impact during the accident, the crew will remain in hospital under observation overnight."
Ogier, kept in for the night as a precaution, issued his own account.
"Unfortunately we went off the road in SS17 today. Julien and I have both gone to hospital for some checks and we will stay overnight as precaution after the heavy impact. But we both feel ok which is the most important," he said.
"This is of course not what we had hoped for this weekend, especially after it was going so well. But the main thing is that we are in one piece, therefore a big thank you to the team for building such a strong car."
He also thanked Ingrassia, the co-driver who came out of retirement at an hour's notice to sit alongside him this season, for what happened immediately after the impact: "I need to thank Julien for taking good care of me immediately after the impact and reassuring my family I am well."
His closing line was aimed at the sister cars: "Good luck to my team mates. Bring it home, guys!"
That instruction now falls to Pajari. The 24-year-old Finn, who took his maiden WRC win at Rally Estonia a fortnight ago, inherited the lead and ended Saturday 46.4s clear of Toyota team-mate Oliver Solberg with two stages left.
He was not treating it as done. "Obviously there's two long stages to do, so anything can still happen," Pajari said. Asked how it felt to lead his home rally, he deflected with a joke: "I can't hear you..."
Earlier in the day he had written off any thought of catching Ogier. "The morning loop was absolutely beautiful, a really close fight," he told DirtFish. "And then already on the last stage of the morning loop Elfyn went off, so some drama started. [...] In that position, after the morning loop, I thought that there is completely no chance to catch Seb."
Pajari drew a parallel with a previous Finnish leader undone in the forests. "I think it's exactly same case as what happened a couple of years ago to Kalle [Rovanpera] that he was clearly in the lead and then went off because of maybe not only because of his fault. So things like that can happen in this rally and it's somehow mental."
Solberg, up from fourth at the start of Saturday, was blunt about what he saw. "It was very scary to see what happened to Seb and Julien, I really, really hope they are OK because that was nasty," he said. "We've just tried to hold position and wait for things to happen, and unfortunately it kind of has."
Ogier's crash was the second big one of the day for Toyota. Championship leader Elfyn Evans rolled on SS14 and lost close to two minutes stuck in a ditch, dropping him behind Hyundai's Adrien Fourmaux before he won SS18 to reclaim third by 3.8s.
"I have to say a huge thanks to the guys for lunchtime," Evans said. "Huge effort after my mistake this morning, thanks to them to allow me to keep driving. And of course even more importantly, we're hoping for the best for Seb and Julien. Our thoughts are with them and I hope they recover well."
The championship maths swings with it. Evans arrived in Finland three points clear of Ogier at the top of the standings; with Ogier scoring nothing and Evans still running in third, that margin is set to grow rather than close.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/ogier-airlifted-after-rally-finland-crash-hands-pajari-the-lead). Visit for full coverage.*