Fourmaux looked set to repeat his strong performance from last year and was in contention for a solid result on Saturday morning. However, on SS11, he made a major blunder – starting the stage with his helmet strap undone, costing him around 20 seconds as he had to stop and fix it.
This dropped the Frenchman to sixth place. Frustrated, Fourmaux launched an all-out attack on the next stage and carried the same aggressive approach into the following one. However, this time, his over-push backfired as he slid off and got stuck in a snowbank.
“Today was not my day definitely,” Fourmaux admitted.
“On SS11 I had to stop to tighten my helmet and lost more than 20 seconds, and then this afternoon I get trapped in a really soft snowbank. The car was in the snowbank on the outside and it pushed the front into it after that, so for 60 metres we were forced along it. “
“At some point it caught the front and then we got stuck in the really fresh snow; it was really deep and there were no spectators,” Fourmaux explained.
On Sunday, Fourmaux will rejoin the rally to help his team chase valuable championship points. As usual, points will be awarded to the five fastest drivers of the day and to the top five finishers on the Power Stage.
“A difficult day, but I just want to refocus on tomorrow and try to get some points for the championship where we can,” Fourmaux said.
Hyundai’s WRC Chief Engineer, Gerard-Jan de Jongh, did not go easy on the Frenchman after his costly mistakes.
“With Adrien’s helmet mistake and his frustrations around that, he was probably trying too hard to compensate for the mistake and unfortunately lost a bit of his control and vision of the rally,” the Hyundai boss stated bluntly.
