Neuville and fellow world champion Ott Tänak will have Adrien Fourmaux joining their team, who impressed last season with M-Sport Ford. Neuville believes that the French driver will bring both his skills and a wealth of experience from competing teams.
“First of all, I think he can bring some information about the Ford for sure, and we can do some comparison as well and see if there’s anything we can improve on our car with his feedback,” Neuville told to RallyJournal.com on December.
Fourmaux finished on the podium five times last season. This year, he is undoubtedly aiming for his first World Rally Championship victory. With two champions by his side as mentors, success certainly won’t be hindered by a lack of guidance.
“It will be a big learning curve for him. I mean, in a big team like Hyundai Motorsport and with obviously now two world champions as Team-mates I think he can learn a lot. Obviously me and Ott have been here for years and have a lot of experience as well. I think that’s his target,” Neuville said.
“Then I’m sure that he wants to get some some victories as well. And he’s going to push for that.”
Hyundai now has three full-season drivers for the first time in a while, as in previous seasons, the third car’s driver has rotated. Esapekka Lappi secured one win last year in the role of third driver, but Andreas Mikkelsen particularly struggled in tarmac events, as the lengthy breaks between drives proved challenging. Dani Sordo played his part well in rough gravel rallies.
However, Hyundai still gives an edge to their arch-rival Toyota, which boasts as many as five different drivers. The full-season drivers are Kalle Rovanperä, Elfyn Evans, Takamoto Katsuta, and Sami Pajari. In addition to this quartet, Sebastien Ogier will also compete in selected events once again.
“Obviously we saw last year the sharing third car didn’t work out very well. I didn’t do the analysis. What was the problem? But it seems like. The team wants to focus on three full time drivers and give everybody the chance to be in the car at every rally,” Neuville summarized.
“It’s something very important, for sure but we probably will not have that big advantage on road position as a team. Compared to Ogier, who will do part time season, but it’s not all about winning. It’s also about being consistent and scoring consistently points.”
