Adrien Fourmaux remains confident that his luck will turn one day after a problem has thrown him out of the fight for his first WRC victory for the second time in a row.
Fourmaux was involved in an intensive fight for the lead at the Sardinia rally in Italy, in which he was even in the lead on Friday morning before completing the day with just 2.1 seconds behind.
On Saturday morning, Fourmaux continued the fight against Sebastien Ogier, but hopes for a first WRC victory evaporated after a front tire platform on the eighth test test.
Fourmaux continued the journey before finally deciding to stop and change the bike. After stopping again to leave Ogier, who was trapped in his dust, Fourmaux lost almost four minutes.
Fourmaux has already suffered a number of misfortunes this year. A technical defect took him from second position at Rallye Portugal, while a technical problem after the first stage in the Safari rally in Kenya cost him a strong points.
“It seems as if we couldn’t be lucky, but it will turn. First it was Thursday in Kenya, then it was the second day in Portugal, next time it will be the third day, and after that everything will be fine,” says Fourmaux. When asked about the flat foot, he adds: “It was just a brake track, I felt a rock, but I didn’t see it.”
“I immediately got a flat foot, and then we tried to manage the tire. But it got pretty difficult for the car, and I didn’t want it to happen like in Kenya and Portugal, so I stopped and we lost time. Then we were too close to Seb and we were told that we should stop so that he could overtake us so that we lost three times. It was a great disappointment.”
“The bad thing was already done for us”
Fourmaux ‘day became even worse on the ninth exam than he got off the street after dust had entered his i20 n. On this exam, he also had a second wild deviation from the route. Fourmaux was thrown out of the line on a jump, but instead of driving back onto the street, he chose the way across a field, roaming a television camera before returning to the stage at the next corner.
“The bad thing was already done for us,” says Fourmaux when asked whether the frustration over the flat foot led to two mistakes on the ninth exam, which threw him back to ninth place. “I was surprised by a jump, and he brought me from the line. Then I avoided driving back to the street because I knew that there were rocks between the small street and the field. And then a lot of dust came into the car, and I asked Alex if his door was closed, and I forgot the next corner.”