Adrien Fourmaux has done his best to make sense of his fight for victory at Rally Portugal coming to an abrupt halt, though still remains in the dark as to what precisely led to him being stranded in the middle of the road on the Arganil test.
Coming into a long radius left-hander, the front-left suspension on his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 suffered a complete failure. Immediately spinning him out and leaving him stuck mid-corner and unable to move.
“You know, it’s like something pulling from the inside,” Fourmaux told DirtFish. “We know it’s a cut with some bedrocks and it has just grabbed the wheel and the wheel is off.
“I did not hit anything; I did check with the video onboard but also from outside and we just wiped [out] something and then we spun but that’s it.”
“The wheel is off, so it’s just held by the damper and the steering arm, because the bottom is broken. So we cannot really move the car, because all the time the wheel goes on the chassis or on the front.”
He had been battling teammate Ott Tänak for the lead on Friday afternoon and was up on the splits until his Arganil off.
“It was a great start to the rally for us,” said Fourmaux. “I had confidence with the car. I was driving my pace, and we had a really good pace. I was happy.
“When you hit something, at least you understand that.
“But yeah, it’s a shame.”
Fourmaux hasn't returned to Matosinhos to debrief with Hyundai at time of publishing – a phone call from the side of the road from Arganil had to suffice in the meantime
When Fourmaux retired from Safari Rally Kenya with broken suspension on the Friday, Hyundai elected not to run him at all on Saturday to preserve both the car and tire options for the points-scoring Super Sunday.
Though no decision has been taken yet, Fourmaux indicated the same may happen again in Portugal.
When asked if he would skip Saturday’s leg, Fourmaux replied: “We have to optimise the Sunday for sure.”
This is the third time this season Fourmaux has retired mid-rally, after crashing out on the penultimate day of Rally Sweden and retiring twice in Kenya: once on Thursday with a relay switch issue and again on Friday with broken suspension.
