Neuville says he was lucky to escape uninjured from a 100mph crash at the shakedown stage for Rally Finland.

The Hyundai driver went off the road backwards and straight into the trees on his first run through the final test for the Jyvaskyla-based event.

The team is now working on rebuilding the i20 WRC, which suffered significant rear end damage in the shunt, ahead of Thursday evening's opening stage.

"[Co-driver] Nicolas [Gilsoul] and I were pretty lucky to get away without any injury this morning," Neuville told AUTOSPORT.

"When you go straight to the trees at this speed, it's not so nice.

"The problem came for me in the fifth-gear left corner.

"I saw some braking marks from some of the boys before me; I tried to adapt, but I couldn't make the apex.

"We come to this corner at 160km/h [100mph]. It was quite a big moment.

"I was understeering straight away and I had to take the handbrake to try to back the car into the trees."