Adrien Fourmaux believes his struggles for tempo on the Central European Rally may be attributed to a thriller problem 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 levels 1m33.4s adrift of chief Thierry Neuville in what proved to be an especially 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 not be reset, which means he needed to full the remaining 4 levels with out hybrid enhance.
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’s not performing the identical because it did on the pre-event take a look at or when he was competing on the Rallylegend occasion final weekend.
“Feeling-wise it appears to be higher however the time continues to be actually unhealthy, so I don’t know,” Fourmaux advised Motorsport.com.
Adrien Fourmaux, M-Sport Ford World Rally Group
Photograph by: M-Sport
“I actually struggled on the soiled stuff to sluggish the automobile down and rotate it. It’s undoubtedly not preferrred, however we had a take a look at within the moist – it was actually clear with no cuts, after which we went Rallylegend the place it was absolutely dry.
“However right here there’s loads of grime on the highway, so I believe we missed one thing on the take a look at.
“But additionally there’s something unsuitable as a result of immediately 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, identical anti-roll bar and identical 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.
Group-mate Gregoire Munster and Toyota’s Sami Pajari additionally needed to run 4 levels with out the enhance as groups are unable to reset the gadgets on security grounds below the brand new rules.
M-Sport has confirmed that it has changed the hybrid models on its vehicles forward of Saturday’s levels.
“We had a difficulty in Greece and we’ve got had the difficulty right here, it’s actually irritating, so I believe it’s massive disgrace for everyone,” Fourmaux added.
