Adrien Fourmaux doesn’t believe there’s anything he could have done to prevent his crash on the third stage of Croatia Rally – his third accident in his last four World Rally Championship rallies.
Due to a terrifying early crash on the Monte Carlo Rally and a mechanical problem on the second day of Rally Sweden that couldn’t be cured for the final day, Fourmaux started this week’s Croatia Rally – the scene of his top flight debut last year – with zero points on the board.
After the first two stages he and co-driver Alexandre Coria were lying sixth overall, 1m.08.5s off the lead, but their event was dramatically curtailed at the very beginning of Krašić – Vrškovac.
Just a few hundred meters onto the stage, Fourmaux lost the rear of his Ford Puma Rally1 on the second corner of the stage – a bend where Thierry Neuville also had a bit of a moment – and plowed through a fence, into somebody’s front garden and out of the rally.
“We had a good approach for the rally and then this stage I didn’t have the info that there was water on the line of this corner and then we arrived and just aquaplaned,” Fourmaux told DirtFish.
“There was nothing I could really do and we just finished there. It’s really a shame but yeah, nothing I can do.
“I had an issue with the throttle, I don’t know actually we have to analyze the data, but definitely it’s the water lying in the corner which just snapped the car completely and there’s nothing I could really do, and I lost it completely because of that.
“It’s frustrating because we had no drama, nothing. We had no punctures, no mistakes, nothing.”
Fourmaux is likely to restart the rally on Saturday as the rollcage “looks alright”. In fact he reckoned he could’ve carried on on Friday – “if we hadn’t broken the jack we could just change the steering arm and we could have continued the stage”.
As it was, his M-Sport Rally1 car couldn’t escape the garden, but Fourmaux was invited into the house by the owner.
“Yeah he invited me inside the house and gave us hospitality,” Fourmaux explained, “so this I really appreciate, gave me food and kept me warm etc. I’m really sorry for his tree.”
