Adrien Fourmaux takes his time, he chooses his words carefully. He doesn’t want to be misunderstood.
Equally, he’s struggling to see what more he could have done.
The Frenchman has been Hyundai’s point man in every sense this season. He’s the only i20 N Rally1 driver to be getting in among Toyota’s army and he’s finished higher than Thierry Neuville on nine of the 11 rallies run so far this year.
The last round, Rally del Paraguay, had the look of another win that got away: a third-stage puncture cost Fourmaux 1m45s yet he finished just 40 seconds away from Sami Pajari’s top step of the podium.
“OK, I’m still missing the win,” Fourmaux told DirtFish, “but, honestly, I’m there [in the fight] at every event. In every rally, the team can count on me playing at the top. I feel comfortable in this sport, I would say.
“And now… now I get to this point where the sport starts to be a bit weird, where there will maybe be only Toyota next year and I have no clue what’s coming – I would like to fight for something, but how can you fight if there is no seat available?
“You know, if this was 2022, when there were some mistakes, then I could accept this: ‘OK, if he disappears, he disappears…’ That’s OK. But now, it’s not the case. I think it’s nearly sure I will not drive the Rally1 car, so what will it be? Rally2, maybe WRC2, maybe ERC? Or maybe some national rallies. I don’t know.
“I am talking a lot, with Toyota, with M-Sport, Stellantis and, of course, with Hyundai. I have some options and some possibilities, but the time is getting late and the priority for me is to stay at the top of the sport. I want to be sure I am in the best position, but also I know there are not so many seats.
“I worked really hard and it’s not like I’m missing the performance. It feels like the sport has let me down.”
Fourmaux starts this week’s Rally Chile fifth in the championship, one point ahead of countryman and nine-time world champion Sébastien Ogier and 20 clear of Neuville. Takamoto Katsuta is 11 points ahead of him in fourth, while a potential season-long third sits with Oliver Solberg 26 up the road.
