Brit Kris Meeke managed to win the third race of the FIA World Rally Championship – the Rally Guanajuato México in Guanajuato, Mexico - despite veering off into the spectators’ car park in the last minute.

Heading into the last stage of the race, Meeke and his co-driver Paul Nagle led by 37.2 seconds, but when they had less than a kilometre to go, their car hit a bump and then veered off the track into the car park.

Fortunately for the pair, Meeke managed to slalom the car through the parked vehicles, turned around, and managed to get the car back on to the track.

The detour cost them about 23 seconds, but due to their initial lead, they were still able to win the race by 13.8 seconds.

Meeke admitted his good fortune, saying: "I'm a lucky boy.

"After a jump, I took a bump. It's certainly one way to finish a rally but we didn't need that.

"I was trying to find my way out of parked cars and trying to find a gap in the hedge. A lot of things went my way.

"I was in the hands of God. I finally made my way between the cars but had punctured the front left tyre. When I crossed the line I didn't know whether I had won or not."

Indeed, as can be seen in this video, Meeke and Kagle were very lucky.

They narrowly missed a parked vehicle as their Citroen C3 car veered off the track through the hedge, and then as Meeke tried to control it while turning, they again narrowly missed some of the parked cars and eventually found an opening in the hedge.

This win moved Meeke up to the sixth position in the Drivers’ Championship, 39 points behind the leader Sébastien Ogier.

Meeke had retired from the Monte-Carlo Rally and finished 12th in Sweden. In the Manufacturers’ Championship, the Citroen Total Abu Dhabi World Rally Team is fourth, 48 points behind the M-Sport World Rally Team.

The next World Rally Championship race will take place in France on April 9. Meeke will be hoping for safer finishing in that race.