A bizarre incident took place during last weekend’s Rally Mexico, where the third place finisher, Thierry Neuville, managed to fix the leaking radiator of his Hyundai i20 rally car via an unlikely source – Corona Beer!
It all happened during the final day of the rally, after the Power Stage, where Neuville needed to drive 33km (on road) back to the service area and was given a maxi-sized bottle of beer presented by rally sponsor Corona. Four kilometers later, the radiator leaked, causing all the cooling fluid to drained away. Neuville and co-driver Nicolas Gilsoul were forced to pull over and remove the i20’s front bumper to get better access while they plugged the hole. Knowing they needed to find any source of liquid to fill the radiator, the Corona beer came to the rescue!
“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.” said Neuville.
The ordeal did not end there as the pair stopped again a few kilometers later to top up some Mexican lager into the radiator. Fortunately they managed to drive their i20 into the service park to collect Hyundai’s first podium in the WRC.
“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.” added Neuville. There were no further details as to whether the Corona was a better coolant than the usual stuff.
[Source: WRC]
