Adrien Fourmaux’s participation in Rally Portugal will be decided this week – with the Frenchman’s World Rally Championship program thought to be in question following his Croatia Rally crash.
M-Sport Ford team chiefs Malcolm Wilson and Richard Millener will meet this week to discuss the implication of Fourmaux’s second crash in three rallies.
“We have some talking to do and some decisions to make,” Millener told DirtFish. “There are too many crashes from Adrien on Tarmac right now. Too many.
“We will review things this week. We’ve entered Adrien for Portugal [in the Ford Puma Rally1] and, without a doubt, one of the options is for him to fulfil that entry.
“But we have a range of options available to us. We can carry on like nothing’s happened, run him in Portugal and get on with it, right the way through to him not driving a Rally1 car again. The answer to your question is somewhere between the two, I’d imagine.”
Millener accepted the conditions were complicated in Croatia, where Fourmaux was caught out in unexpected standing water – the same place where Thierry Neuville endured a huge moment.
“We know there are two sides to stories,” said Millener. “We know Adrien had a completely dry test and that wasn’t ideal for a rally as wet as Croatia, but he wasn’t alone in that – lots of other drivers tested in dry conditions. This is frustrating for all of us.
“I feel the frustration for the team. The driver understands what it takes to put the car together, the effort that goes in; Adrien was in the workshop after his crash in Monte Carlo working with them – but it’s not like he’s in that high-pressure situation all the time, trying to get the cars turned around and sorted out.
“You can’t just keep turning up to the workshop and saying sorry, but this is a junior team and when we’re developing young drivers these are the difficulties we face.
“It’s a high-pressure environment. He’s one of the leading drivers in the team and no matter how much we try to take the pressure away it’s there and he knows it’s there and he has to deal with it without crashing.”
