Should Fourmaux stay or should he go?

Secto Rally Finland is about more than just sending rally cars skywards. It’s the official – unofficial – start of the silly season. This year didn’t disappoint, with plenty of chatter about who might – or might not – be wearing a different shade of blue next year.

After scoring his fourth podium of 2024, Adrien Fourmaux stepped into the spotlight as the mover and shaker in the driver market. The Frenchman’s been linked with a move from M-Sport to Hyundai.

M-Sport team principal Richard Millener has told DirtFish he’s positive the Ford squad can keep their number one driver, but should Fourmaux consider making the move if an offer is tabled?

Fleeing M-Sport hasn’t always worked

I’m completely torn here. We’ve seen so many drivers learning their craft with M-Sport before flying the Cumbrian nest for pastures more profitable or potentially faster.

How has that worked out? Mixed bag, if we’re honest.

Petter Solberg was the highest profile and most controversial when he shipped out mid-season in 2000. The Norwegian made his Subaru move stick with a title three years down the line.

François Duval’s decision to ditch Dovenby in favor of joining Sébastien Loeb at Citroën in 2005 was the biggest mistake the Belgian ever made. He was offered a multi-year deal with Ford and, under M-Sport’s tutelage, a world title was on the cards. Instead, he took on the master, failed and faded from the sport’s frontline.

More recently, Ott Tänak made it work to top the world with Toyota while Jari-Matti Latvala spent four years in Sébastien Ogier’s shadow at Volkswagen. Elfyn Evans? Work in progress, watch this space.

All of the above is, as you might have gathered, just me treading water, keeping you reading while I try to decide. I’ve decided: stay where you are, Adrien.

It’s clear now. Why would you even consider moving? M-Sport’s been a cornerstone of the series for close on three decades and there’s no indication this is going to change. Hyundai? A good few folk are talking a year, two at the most before the Koreans start going around in circles in the middle of France.

And, as Richard Millener points out, Fourmaux’s the number one for them. If things remain as they are at Hyundai, best he could expect is third driver status – working for the good of a world champion (possibly two).

Granted, there might be a touch more cash in it, but that simply can’t be a priority at this point in Fourmaux’s career. It has to be all about pace and potential. M-Sport has plenty of both.

David Evans

Would driver and team’s goals align?

The allure of Hyundai is somewhat obvious for Fourmaux: a manufacturer currently putting big money into the sport, which means a full testing schedule and presumably a tidy bit of take-home pay to go with it. Fourmaux was clearly frustrated with the lack of preparation for Finland: while the i20 N Rally1 did prove difficult on the previous round, its drivers at least got a chance to test it beforehand.

But there is also a potential pitfall: instability. There’s the will-they-won’t-they talk of Hyundai’s future in the WRC. Cyril Abiteboul suggested to DirtFish in Latvia that i20 N Rally1s would be on the start line in 2026 – then backtracked somewhat in Finland by saying its program was only guaranteed until 2025. So let’s take the latter at face value: what’s the point in moving to a bigger team for one season, then risk having to start all over again?

Hyundai has one big drawback to the other Rally1 teams: its commitment is not demonstrably unwavering. Toyota is going nowhere – its recent investment into a still-under-development technology center in Leppävesi proves as much. And no matter the financial strife M-Sport may end up in, Malcolm Wilson would rather remortgage his own soul than have his team pull out of the WRC. Do you think Hyundai’s board members in Seoul feel the same about the WRC? Based on how late in the day they sanctioned their first Rally1 car, they do not.

Abiteboul wants a full-time third driver, based on his recent comments. Its short-term need for Fourmaux is therefore clear. Does Fourmaux need Hyundai, though?

It all feels rather big fish in a small pond versus a small fish in a big pond. Which is better? Many assume the latter. Research says that’s wrong: academic self-concept is stronger in the former. In other words, when not up against behemoths within an established world-class environment (in this case, Thierry Neuville and Ott Tänak), a person’s performance is stronger than it would have been as the small fish in a big pond.

We’ve become blinded by the idea that fighting through strife makes the man. But there is no glory in suffering. Fourmaux didn’t become the driver he did today because he failed at his first run at Rally1 – it’s because when he went back to the small pond in WRC2 and BRC, he learned and thrived.

Hyundai will never be Fourmaux’s team. Thierry Neuville has been there too long. And he’s not going anywhere either: if Hyundai gives him a contract, the Belgian will sign it – those were his words to me earlier this year. It would only be a stepping stone to something else.

It’s a tempting move – but does it make sense as part of a long-term pathway to becoming world champion? It seems, from the outside at least, that’s not what Hyundai would be looking to him for.

Alasdair Lindsay

Why jeopardize what’s working?

Patience is a virtue Adrien Fourmaux unquestionably picked up during that season spent between Rally1 drives in 2023.

He almost looked too desperate to perform during his debut Rally1 season in 2022, too keen to prove his worth to the world now and not a second later. Perhaps he was just too impressive in a World Rally Car the previous year that the opportunity came too soon; with the benefit of hindsight Fourmaux himself told me at the start of the year he reckons that was the case.

But either way, having a far more composed and patient approach has served the Frenchman well in 2024 as he’s marked himself out, once again, as one of the WRC’s big future talents.

Personally I think that same approach should be applied to his driver market negotiations.

Hyundai would be tempting. It’s likely to win at least one, if not both, world titles this season, has promised a revised and improved version of its Rally1 machine for 2025, is a fully-fledged manufacturer operation and would (you’d assume) endorse Fourmaux better for his services.

But Fourmaux would be giving up an awful lot if he walked – mainly the ability to be a number one and mold a car and team around him. Status matters to some drivers more than it does others, but at least to me Fourmaux seems to thrive when he is the main man. At Hyundai, he’d be third best – at least to begin with.

Then there’s the performance factors. On balance, the i20 is probably a faster car than the Puma, but is Fourmaux genuinely capable just now of winning rallies on pure pace alone? Maybe – but it’s not a dead cert. So how much does that really matter when he still has small gains to make himself too?

But above all else, Fourmaux is a driver who has lacked continuity in his career – bouncing from Rally2 to World Rally Car to Rally1, then back to Rally2 and now Rally1 again. Right now it’s working at M-Sport; why risk that for a move to a team that may not even be in the service park in 2026 anyway?

That could perhaps be classed as impatient, and impatience is what almost wrecked Fourmaux’s career two years ago.

Luke Barry