Fourmaux, who joined Hyundai’s WRC team for this season, opened the year with an excellent third place at Monte Carlo. However, drama struck already in the following round in Sweden. First, Fourmaux forgot to fasten his helmet strap and lost time. Then, in an attempt to make up the lost time, he crashed his Hyundai into a snowbank.
In Kenya, Fourmaux suffered a technical issue and retired. In the Canary Islands, the entire Hyundai team struggled, and in Portugal his rally ended with a broken suspension. In Sardinia just over a week ago, there were tyre issues, off-road excursions – and finally a rollover.
Hyundai’s technical director François-Xavier Demaison sees similarities between Fourmaux and eight-time world champion Sébastien Ogier in his younger days.
“He showed that he’s not yet capable of fighting for the wins and championships. [He needs] to control the emotions. But I know a good French driver who was also a bit like this when he was younger,” Demaison told DirtFish.
“When you’re young, for sure you’re ambitious. You want to win and show to everybody that you are, [but] rally is really a place where experience is really important compared to circuit racing.”
Ogier is remembered for his fiery early-career battles with then-rally king Sébastien Loeb in the Citroën team. Those formative years shaped Ogier into Loeb’s successor. According to Demaison, the most important thing now is that Hyundai supports Fourmaux in the right way.
“We talk to him and we try to help him. Maybe he needs to tell us what he needs. He’s a clever person,” Demaison said.
“I understand he wants to win a rally so much that when it’s something, when any problem happens, it’s just becoming a catastrophe. We have a good driver, he can be fast. He showed that in Kenya – he did a fantastic Sunday, scoring a lot of points. In Spain, he was very fast. He can do it.”
The World Rally Championship continues at the end of June with the Acropolis Rally in Greece.
