When it comes to driver moves in motorsport, there are both pull and push factors. The allure of the potential destination can be coupled to discarding a problem from staying put.
Adrien Fourmaux to Hyundai. It’s been talked about a lot lately. He’s already decided where he’s going for 2025 – and that destination could be Hyundai. But as we discussed when the rumors of a Hyundai switch first emerged, there would be plenty of downsides to departing Dovenby Hall.
One of the potential ‘push’ factors reared its head again in Chile. The Ford Puma was built a winner from the ground up – Sébastien Loeb proved as much by scoring the first win of the Rally1 era aboard one. But with M-Sport in a position where it has to make every penny of its budget count, keeping up with the rate of upgrades deployed by Toyota and Hyundai is a tough ask. And it’s starting to become noticeable.
The first admission that the Puma still had a slight performance deficit to its rivals came on Rally Latvia, almost three months ago: “We know that we are missing a little bit with the car,” admitted Fourmaux in the Liepāja service park. “All the team is working to improve that part of the car.
Fourmaux has been heavily involved in M-Sport's development program - but doesn't always see the results
“I think we need to develop a little bit more the engine. The rest I’m quite confident.”
M-Sport receives technical support from Ford Performance in America, where the WRC program has access to resource that’s shared with other Blue Oval programs in stock car and sportscar racing. That means frequent trips to Concord, North Carolina for Fourmaux to climb aboard the simulator for testing – a cost efficiency to reduce the amount of real-world running needed to check setups and new part homologations.
As Fourmaux explained after Rally Finland: “There is setup because we have different roads, but there is also homologations that we try to optimize the car and see which direction we need to go, etc.
“It’s a lot of job before to try things on a real car and we gain time because we say, OK, this is working, this is not, so then we forget and then we go ahead like that. So it’s something interesting. It’s not so nice because it’s in the US and it’s a lot of travel every time, but at least I’ve seen some good improvement at the beginning of the year.”
Fourmaux may well have been in podium contention in Chile had his alternator belt not fallen off and triggered a series of events that led to a one-minute penalty. Two stage wins suggested the car still had plenty of pace but there was one gripe still niggling at Fourmaux: upgrades had been developed and tested but not implemented.
Two stage wins showed what might have been in Chile
“It shows that the Puma is still competitive, so it’s really positive,” said Fourmaux of his Chile result. “We missed a little bit in some places, we know where. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really come.”
“We have tried things on the test, but they didn’t even come on the rally and we could have had it here. So that’s quite frustrating. There are things in the background, but it doesn’t come.”
The reason why?
“Always the same reason, I think,” replied Fourmaux.
Money?
“Yeah.”
It goes without saying this isn’t a situation M-Sport wants to be in. It will be hurting the team as much as it is Fourmaux. As founder Malcolm Wilson remarked in Finland when discussing his team’s future in the WRC: “We can’t continue like we have been.”
If Fourmaux remains at M-Sport for 2025, it would be despite these problems. If he departs, it may well have been one of the contributing factors.
