WRC Rally Mexico Racer Thierry Neuville Fills Radiator With Beer

By Ganesh

Published: Thursday, March 13, 2014, 13:48 [IST]

Rally race drivers, unlike drivers from other motorsports, are frequently required to carry out emergency repairs to their race cars. And not always do they have access to proper tools and other stuff important for a car to run.

In such cases it helps immensely to think out of the box, a perfect example of which demonstrated by Thierry Neuville who races for the young Hyundai Motorsport team.

Also Read: Hyundai i20 WRC Race Car

Recently, during WRC Rally Mexico the duo of Neuville and co-driver Nicolas Gilsoul were returning back to service when they faced a leaking radiator. They quickly fixed the leak, but had no coolant to fill the radiator.

"We had driven maybe three or four kilometres of the road section when I saw the engine temperature was very high, that's when I realised we had a problem. It was very stressful," Neuville told wrc.com.

Fortunately, Neuville had received a large bottle of beer from Rally Mexico's corporate sponsor Corona after the final power stage. Neuville, being a teetotaller, had put the Corona bottle at the back of the Hyundai i20 to take back to the team.

Faced with an emergency Neuville promptly poured the large bottle of beer into the car's radiator. "We were able to fix it quite quickly but to refill the system we made use of everything we had in the car, luckily we got some beer at the end of the Power Stage and we used it."

"I really tried to stay calm and say to myself we were okay, but when we had more than 25km to go I thought okay, maybe this could be the end. But after we stopped again the temperature came down and then I thought it would be okay."

Amazingly, the beer managed to keep the engine temperature in check, making it possible for Hyundai to earn its first podium in the WRC.