M-Sport team principal Richard Millener is confident Adrien Fourmaux will have a car capable of challenging for victory at this week’s Rally Japan.
The Frenchman struggled to find a transmission setup which worked on the asphalt of Central European Rally and crashed on Saturday morning, having cited issues with the Puma’s front differential. He returned with a stage win on Sunday morning, but admitted he was concerned about the potential for carrying those issues forward into the season finale in Japan.
Millener has told DirtFish that won’t be the case, with Fourmaux running a different chassis to the one he used on last month’s penultimate WRC round of the season.
Teams’ chassis, as well as other significant components, are paired for CER and Japan, but because it’s only entering two cars in Aichi, M-Sport can run a different Puma for its lead driver.
Millener said: “After CER, we looked into every aspect of what could be causing the issue for Adrien, but there was nothing obvious on the car. He wasn’t getting the right feeling from the car, but for us it seems that it was perhaps a setup issue between the transmission, the geometry, roll bars and everything. As far as we can see, it wasn’t a fault, nothing was broken, it was just the wrong setup.
Fourmaux will drive a different Puma Rally1 in Japan to the one he used in CER
“Regardless, for Japan, Adrien takes a different car with a setup which we’re confident will work well on that event.”
Tackling Japan for the first time last year, Fourmaux’s stay on the Toyota City-based event wasn’t a long one – he was one of three frontline drivers caught out by the worst of the conditions in the Isegami’s Tunnel stage on Friday morning.
“That was a real shame last year,” said Millener. “We’d seen Adrien getting stronger and stronger through the season and he deserved more from Japan. Let’s see for next week. It’s not going to be easy for him when the other guys have been through the stages and understand the conditions and grip a little bit more after two years on the event.
“In reality, this is his first time out. As we saw last year, the weather can turn things on their head a little bit. Some crazy weather always spices things up and it can bring opportunity. If there is an opportunity, Adrien’s been driving very well this year, so everything is possible.”
