In the end, nobody was surprised. The world saw this one coming. But still, seeing Adrien Fourmaux in Hyundai overalls looked odd. Less so for the Frenchman. He’d known this one was coming for a while, time enough to prepare for his sartorial switch.
The dust has settled now. First came the confirmation he was departing Dovenby, a moment marked with a farewell Monza win for M-Sport’s Ford Puma. Then that debut success aboard an i20 on the Rallye National Hivernal du Dévoluy a week later.
Fourmaux smiles: “It was a good end and a good beginning.”
The focus is now on furthering that good beginning, and beating Kalle Rovanperä’s Toyota in December helped no end in that direction.
“I’m feeling really positive,” the 29-year-old said. “I have the same target like always going into this year: I want to do the best for everybody. I want the maximum points for us and for the team.”
But what does success look like in his first season as a non-M-Sport professional?
Waving goodbye and saying hello... it's all-change for Adrien Fourmaux this season
“At the beginning of the 2024, I said I would be happy to be on the podium in the second half of the season,” Fourmaux says. “And after three events, we had already two podiums so let’s see what we can do this year.
“My first target would be to win [a WRC round]. And then let’s see for the championship. We have been able to play for the podium of the championship until Sardinia [last season] and then we stayed close until Central Europe. So it was really positive – especially because we were always starting on the first positions [on the road] with the full-time drivers. We were disturbed a little bit by the part-time drivers coming in, but, like I said, let’s see for the championship.
“For the manufacturers’ [championship], this will be really my first time playing for that one as well.”
Which brings us neatly on to the topic of helping Hyundai finish the job it started this season, in terms of winning the makes’ race. There’s no doubting the strength for Hyundai, with Fourmaux lining up alongside defending world drivers’ champion Thierry Neuville and 2019 winner Ott Tänak. Does that faze him?
“I have a good relationship with them both,” he said. “I will do my own job and they will do theirs. I think it’s going to be a good year.”
The off-season departure of hybrid from the Rally 1 category has certainly simplified the process of switching cars – something demonstrated by Fourmaux’s immediate speed on the roads north of Gap last month.
“For sure,” he says, “there was less things to learn because all the hybrid strategy, the recharge, the delivery of the power and all of those things – I don’t have to learn them with this car. In some ways, it’s like trying to learn a new Rally2 car.”
Sensing the Puma-i20 comparison question coming, Fourmaux deftly disarms it.
“I didn’t drive the Puma without the hybrid,” he said. “OK, sometimes when we lost the hybrid during a rally I knew what this was like, but then we still had the weight from the battery, so it wasn’t the same to compare.
“Already there are really positive things on the Hyundai, but there was other things positive on the Puma. To be fair, it’s difficult to compare the two cars. I can tell you I feel comfortable inside the Hyundai. I’m sitting closer to Alex [Coria, co-driver], a little bit more in the middle of the car.
“Alex also has more space for his legs, but we are seated a bit more in the back of the car instead of in front, like the Puma. You know, it’s things like that, it changes a bit the visibility inside the car. For sure, there is a difference, but in terms of chassis, I can’t say: ‘Oh, this is better, this is worse.’”
And it’s too early to talk specifics about the teams.
“The feeling was quite the same inside the factory [in Alzenau],” he said, “with the mechanics and the engineers and things. It’s a big building, like it is for M-Sport, but it’s different to Dovenby. When you arrive to Dovenby, it’s really, really British. It’s quite a special place to walk through the front door – it’s like proper gentleman class. Coming through the door into Alzena, it’s feeling more like a place to go to work.”
Which is exactly what Fourmaux intends to do.
