Adrien Fourmaux has crashed out of a podium position in bizarre circumstances, ripping the passenger-side door off his Hyundai and being forced to retire despite finishing Rally Japan’s first Sunday stage.
Rain began to fall heavily during the first pass of the Nukuta stage, with conditions worsening for later runners.
That led to Fourmaux’s windscreen misting up which impaired visibility, which then led to him skating straight on at a left-hander and down into a tree-lined ditch.
Dropping into the ditch loosened the door next to co-driver Alex Coria, which was then ripped off entirely by the secondary impact with a tree. The door coming off then damaged much of the bodywork on the rear passenger side of the car.
Though Fourmaux and Coria finished the stage and the car was still running, they retired as a safety precaution – though they would have been unable to continue anyway as their timecard was in the door that fell off mid-stage.
“After a straight I saw the braking, I brake and then I didn’t see really well the entry of the corner,” Fourmaux told DirtFish. “Then all the mid-corner it was full of mud, so I went a bit wide, we go a bit in the ditch, we hit the tree so we damaged the door. But the weird thing is the left wheel is damaged but we hit on the right.”
Coria’s side of the car took the brunt of the impact but, such was his level of focus, he was more concerned about keeping his pacenotes dry in the aftermath of their crash.
“When I see that, I just stay focused on my pace note and put a bit my book, not like straight [but to the side] to not have some rain coming in the car. We adapt, you know, the condition is like this and we’ll see, we continue until the finish.”
It took until the flying finish for Coria to realise both the timecard – and his mobile phone – were no longer with them.
“Just after, for sure, the moment, I’m thinking, oh s***, my time card is on the door, as well my phone. But that is anyways, I don’t care for that.”
Despite missing his door, Coria indicated he would have been fine to continue if Fourmaux had elected to do so and the timecard had not gone missing.
“For me, it’s quite OK,” said Coria. “If it’s possible to continue, I can continue. But it’s more safe if we retire the car, for sure.”
Fourmaux’s shunt had implications for the battle for the rally lead. Elfyn Evans had been 7.5s up on Sébastien Ogier at the 16.26-kilometer split, enough to take the rally lead, but lost 6.7s in the final section of stage where Fourmaux had gone off.
“I was a bit distracted by the mess left up the road there,” said Evans at the finish line.
Ogier’s lead was cut to 5.7s with five stages of Rally Japan remaining. Sami Pajari has been promoted to the final podium position and has 1m29.8s in hand over Ott Tänak.
