Story By: Juan Mayes, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Golder’s News And Sport

Video Credit: Golders/@MadsOstberg

This is the moment a spectator at the World Rally Championships falls 16 feet onto the track and a speeding rally driver is forced to swerve to narrowly avoid running the fan over.

The incident occurred during the Rallye Deutschland (German Rally), part of the World Rally Championship, in the second race of the Stein und Wein stage in the German state of Saarland.

In the video, an unnamed male spectator can be seen falling a reported fives metres (16 feet) onto the track as Norwegian driver Mads Ostberg was driving his Citroen C3 R5 past a curve reportedly going at 150kph (93.2mph).

The spectator tries to get out of the way but the driver is forced to swerve to the left narrowly dodging the fan before moving back onto the track.

Ostberg reportedly said he missed him by “one metre or half a metre” (3.2 to 1.6 feet).

The Norwegian driver spoke with local media: “He fell off the wall onto the racing line, if he had fallen half a second later I would not have been able to avoid him. It was a matter of luck.”

He went on to say: “The shock of the experience gets into your head a little bit when you are driving. I was thinking about it for the rest of the stage. How much did it affect my speed? I do not know. It did not make me faster, that is for sure.”

No injuries were reported in the incident. It is unclear what caused the fan to fall onto the track.

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