SIDE IMPACT
Although details of the accident that killed Park remain sketchy, it is known that the car driven by Estonian Markko Martin went off the road at speed and hit a tree on the passenger side.
Peugeot boss Jean-Pierre Nicolas said Park died instantly. Despite all the safety advances, that is the kind of crash -- a lateral collision with an immovable object -- that all drivers dread.
The side is the weakest part of the car and even a roll cage using metres of steel struts and cross members can offer little real protection.
"Short of building a Chieftain tank, there is no real solution to this problem," said Briton Nicky Grist, a championship-winning co-driver with Colin McRae.
"The side is the most vulnerable part of any car, whether it's a road car or a rally car," he told the Guardian newspaper.
"When you are sliding towards a tree at that speed, there's little you can do."
Grist, who has had several lucky escapes with McRae over the years including one in Corsica in 2000 when their Ford landed upside down in a ravine, felt it was not really a question of co-driver safety.
"It could just as easily have happened to the driver, had it been a right rather than a left-hand bend," he said. "It's just a horrible twist of fate.
"You could have that accident 200 times, but if you hit it in the wrong place on the 201st time, then you will get hurt."
