Adrien Fourmaux believes his struggles for tempo on the Central European Rally will be attributed to a thriller situation that his M-Sport World Rally Championship staff will examine.
Fourmaux has been one the WRC’s kind drivers this yr however has unusually been off the tempo on this weekend’s asphalt roads, which yielded a WRC2 victory for the Frenchman final yr.
Fourmaux accomplished Friday’s six phases 1m33.4s adrift of chief Thierry Neuville in what proved to be a particularly troublesome day for the 29-year-old.
A hybrid unit failure on stage 4 (Strasín 1 – 26.69km) brought on by an influence from a soar touchdown put Fourmaux on the again foot. Underneath new rules that got here in final month, the unit can now not be reset, that means he needed to full the remaining 4 phases with out hybrid increase.
Nevertheless, Fourmaux felt that the hybrid loss was solely a part of his issues having highlighted dealing with points earlier than the failure. On the noon distant service he mentioned that he was battling “all the things” when requested what areas of the automobile have been inflicting strife.
Adjustments made on the distant service improved the Puma throughout the afternoon.
However Fourmaux believes there was one thing awry with the automobile since there begin of the occasion as it isn’t performing the identical because it did on the pre-event check or when he was competing on the Rallylegend occasion final weekend.
“Feeling-wise it appears to be higher however the time remains to be actually dangerous, so I don’t know,” Fourmaux informed Motorsport.com.
Adrien Fourmaux, M-Sport Ford World Rally Crew
Picture by: M-Sport
“I actually struggled on the soiled stuff to sluggish the automobile down and rotate it. It’s undoubtedly not excellent, however we had a check within the moist – it was actually clear with no cuts, after which we went Rallylegend the place it was totally dry.
“However right here there’s numerous filth on the street, so I believe we missed one thing on the check.
“But in addition there’s something improper as a result of instantly from the beginning of the occasion I discussed to the staff that the automobile doesn’t really feel the identical because it was in Rallylegend with the identical springs, similar anti-roll bar and similar dampers, the automobile was already a lot softer. There’s something we have to examine.
“We’re going to change the anti-roll bar and comes and we’ll see if there’s any distinction.”
Fourmaux was certainly one of 4 Rally1 drivers to undergo a hybrid unit failure on Friday, which added to the frustration.
Crew-mate Gregoire Munster and Toyota’s Sami Pajari additionally needed to run 4 phases with out the increase as groups are unable to reset the gadgets on security grounds beneath the brand new rules.
M-Sport has confirmed that it has changed the hybrid items on its vehicles forward of Saturday’s phases.
“We had a difficulty in Greece and now we have had the problem right here, it’s actually irritating, so I believe it’s huge disgrace for everyone,” Fourmaux added.
