Adrien Fourmaux has taken fifth position away from Hyundai team-mate Esapekka Lappi on the penultimate stage of Rally Sweden.
That means Fourmaux, currently the leading Hyundai driver in the World Rally Championship, is now also the leading Hyundai in the event.
Lappi had been 0.9s faster than Fourmaux on the first pass of Sunday’s opening Västervik stage to hold a 9.1s advantage over his team-mate.
But the Finn, one of three part-time drivers for Hyundai this year, then lost a massive 12.5s on the repeat pass to suddenly trail by 3.4s.
Was that a team tactic?
“We just had a text message that we don’t know why he’s coming slower, I don’t know,” said Fourmaux, “but for me I had the same pace as this morning. There is a lot of loose and lot of understeer in every corner, but I do my best.”
Lappi was asked the same question.
“No,” he replied, “I was just too slow, that’s all. I tried to stay out of the banks and to be very clean, but seems just… not pushing enough.”
Toyota continues to lock out the top-four positions at Rally Sweden, with Elfyn Evans leading Takamoto Katsuta by 14.0s and Sami Pajari and Oliver Solberg holding third and fourth.
Evans is also leading Super Sunday, albeit by just 0.7s ahead of Katsuta, with Solberg, Pajari and Fourmaux on track for the rest of the bonus points.
