Adrien Fourmaux believes his struggles for tempo on the Central European Rally might be attributed to a thriller difficulty that his M-Sport World Rally Championship staff will examine.
Fourmaux has been one the WRC’s kind drivers this 12 months however has unusually been off the tempo on this weekend’s asphalt roads, which yielded a WRC2 victory for the Frenchman final 12 months.
Fourmaux accomplished Friday’s six levels 1m33.4s adrift of chief Thierry Neuville in what proved to be a particularly troublesome day for the 29-year-old.
A hybrid unit failure on stage 4 (Strasín 1 – 26.69km) attributable to an influence from a leap touchdown put Fourmaux on the again foot. Beneath new rules that got here in final month, the unit can now not be reset, which means he needed to full the remaining 4 levels with out hybrid increase.
Nonetheless, Fourmaux felt that the hybrid loss was solely a part of his issues having highlighted dealing with points earlier than the failure. On the noon distant service he stated that he was combating “all the things” when requested what areas of the automotive have been inflicting strife.
Modifications made on the distant service improved the Puma throughout the afternoon.
However Fourmaux believes there was one thing awry with the automotive since there begin of the occasion as it’s not performing the identical because it did on the pre-event take a look at or when he was competing on the Rallylegend occasion final weekend.
“Feeling-wise it appears to be higher however the time continues to be actually dangerous, so I don’t know,” Fourmaux advised Motorsport.com.
Adrien Fourmaux, M-Sport Ford World Rally Group
Picture by: M-Sport
“I actually struggled on the soiled stuff to gradual the automotive down and rotate it. It’s positively not excellent, however we had a take a look at within the moist – it was actually clear with no cuts, after which we went Rallylegend the place it was absolutely dry.
“However right here there’s plenty of dust on the highway, so I believe we missed one thing on the take a look at.
“But in addition there’s something mistaken as a result of instantly from the beginning of the occasion I discussed to the staff that the automotive doesn’t really feel the identical because it was in Rallylegend with the identical springs, similar anti-roll bar and similar dampers, the automotive was already a lot softer. There’s something we have to examine.
“We’re going to change the anti-roll bar and is derived and we’ll see if there’s any distinction.”
Fourmaux was one in all 4 Rally1 drivers to endure a hybrid unit failure on Friday, which added to the frustration.
Group-mate Gregoire Munster and Toyota’s Sami Pajari additionally needed to run 4 levels with out the increase as groups are unable to reset the units on security grounds underneath the brand new rules.
M-Sport has confirmed that it has changed the hybrid items on its automobiles forward of Saturday’s levels.
“We had a difficulty in Greece and we now have had the problem right here, it’s actually irritating, so I believe it’s massive disgrace for everyone,” Fourmaux added.
