With just four stages remaining on the final day of Rally Paraguay, Fourmaux sits impressively in second place. He is only ten seconds behind his fellow Frenchman Sébastien Ogier, who moved into the rally lead on Saturday after his Toyota team-mate Kalle Rovanperä suffered a puncture and dropped far back.
Fourmaux even led the WRC newcomer rally on Friday before suffering two punctures that cost him the top spot. But with a clean run through Saturday’s gravel stages, the Hyundai star has put himself in a strong position for the decisive Super Sunday.
On Saturday, Fourmaux chose a more cautious approach.
“We know it’s a compromise between pushing and playing with luck, or just trying to do your best to get a good result without any trouble. I already had two punctures on Friday, so I really wanted to avoid it today (on Saturday),” Fourmaux explained.
“We can be happy to still be second. Yesterday I was second, and this morning the gap to the lead was ten seconds – and it’s still ten seconds tonight. So actually nothing really happened for us today, only the leader changed, that’s all,” he added with a smile.
Fourmaux has previously secured seven third-place finishes in the WRC’s top class. Now he is on course for his first-ever second place – and the gap to the win is only 10.3 seconds.
The Frenchman has already shown flashes of great pace this season in a Hyundai, but a victory here would still rank as a shock result.
“We’ll see tomorrow if we can get some really good pace back. We need to catch Seb by 2.5 seconds on every stage. It’s a challenge, but let’s see if it’s possible,” Fourmaux said.
“We’ll just try to push, and maybe Seb can also have a puncture or make a mistake. Then ten seconds is nothing. But at the same time, it can be a big gap. So we’re going to try to stay there,” he summed up.
