Fourmaux got off to a strong start at the gravel rally held just under two weeks ago. However, on Friday afternoon, he was forced to retire after his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 car suffered suspension damage.
Following the incident, Fourmaux and the Hyundai WRC team carried out a thorough investigation to uncover the root cause of the failure.
“We were on the racing line and didn’t hit anything — not at that moment or before. There was a part that wasn’t properly configured, and it had weakened due to repeated impacts. It could have failed earlier or later in the loop,” Fourmaux told French outlet Rallye-sport.fr.
“At first, I thought I had broken a driveshaft and had no idea what had happened. I wanted to check both the onboard footage and external video to try and understand. Afterwards, the team became even more vigilant in checking the parts to avoid similar issues in the future,” he explained.
Although the Frenchman was able to rejoin the rally on Saturday under restart rules, the time penalties meant he shifted focus from competition to car testing. Additionally, he gained experience running first on the road – a tough role in a gravel rally.
“There was a huge amount of road sweeping and we had nothing left to fight for. I was opening all the stages alone, which was frankly a bit boring. At times it felt like we were driving for nothing.”
“But between stages, we worked on trying out more unusual setup changes than we normally would,” Fourmaux added.
Despite returning to action, Fourmaux was officially marked as a retirement from WRC Rally Portugal, as he withdrew on the final day before the Power Stage.
“For Sunday, even though we knew the sweeping would make it very difficult, we still had to try. There was a chance we could benefit from others’ problems and score a few points for the team. In the end, we had a cooling issue, and it made more sense to replace the part with a new one for Rally Sardinia,” Fourmaux said.
Rally Sardinia, the next round of the 2025 WRC season, takes place next week.
