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Motorsport

Sudden failure forces Adrien Fourmaux out of Rally Portugal victory fight

Adrien Fourmaux Ott Tanak Hyundai Rally Portugal Portugal Toyota Elfyn Evans Kalle Rovanpera Sebastien Ogier MSportFord

Adrien Fourmaux exited the Rally Portugal victory battle in unfortunate circumstances, which has helped relieve the pressure on Hyundai World Rally Championship team-mate and rally leader Ott Tanak.

After struggling at Rally Islas Canarias last month, Hyundai bounced back on Portugal’s tricky gravel stages on Friday morning with Tanak and Fourmaux locked in the fight for victory.

Fourmaux trailed Tanak by 0.2s after stage five heading into the first of two remote services that punctuated a mammoth 149.42km, 10-stage leg.

The Frenchman managed to keep with Tanak through stages six [Lousa] and seven [Gois], with the pair split by 0.8s as their hard fought battle continued. However, the leaderboard suffered a shake-up in stage eight [Arganil, 14.7km] when Fourmaux’s Hyundai i20 N suddenly stopped.

Fourmaux’s car pitched into a spin before grinding to a halt, with damage to the left front suspension. It is unclear how the damage was caused as Fourmaux didn’t appear to hit anything.

With the car stuck in the middle of the corner, the following crews had to carefully navigate around the stricken i20 N Rally 1 after officials elected against red flagging the stage.

It proved to be a bittersweet stage for Hyundai, as Thierry Neuville took the stage win to head to the second remote service sitting in fifth place, 23.0s behind rally leader Tanak.

Adrien Fourmaux, Alexandre Coria, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1 (Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool)

Tanak, who had been struggling with the balance of his i20 N, managed to navigate through the stage with a broken windscreen to open up a 3.5s advantage over Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta.

“We managed two really good stages this morning but after this the sweet spot has been missing a bit and I am fighting a bit with the car,” Tanak.

Six-time Rally Portugal winner Sebastien Ogier held third position, 3.9s adrift after starting the day struggling with the set-up of his GR Yaris.

“The fight is pretty tight, we are a bit closer to the lead. It has been an okay loop for us, there are little things I can do slightly better but not too bad," said Ogier.

Two-time world champion Kalle Rovanpera found the going tough in the morning that featured stages with damp sections, which exacerbated his struggles understanding the new Hankook gravel tyre.

“I have made a little bit of progress but from the car side it, not really. It is really hard to understand what would make it work, because the tyre is just really lazy and not reacting to anything,” he said of the soft tyres at the first remote service.

“That is the biggest issue and you have a lot of understeer and you cannot load the tyre like before. I was always using the tyre and loading it a lot.”

Kalle Rovanperä, Jonne Halttunen, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 (Photo by: Toyota Racing)

However, once conditions became drier in the afternoon, Rovanpera was able to find more of a rhythm on the hard compound, climbing to fourth, 14.7s adrift of the lead.

“Now it is starting to dry up, it feels a bit like a normal Portugal we are used to. The last few stages were pretty okay," he added.

Faced with the disadvantage of opening the road, championship leader Elfyn Evans held sixth spot, limiting the time loss to 39.5s, but the Welshman felt it wasn’t just road cleaning that was hampering his performance.

“It is not performing so well this afternoon. I think there is more in it than just road cleaning if I’m honest. The gaps shouldn’t be quite as big as they are. I haven’t got a lot of answers at the moment,” said Evans.

The top 10 was completed by Toyota’s Sami Pajari, M-Sport-Ford duo Josh McErlean and Gregoire Munster, and leading WRC2 runner Oliver Solberg. M-Sport-Ford’s Martins Sesks dropped out of the points-paying positions after suffering a front-left puncture on stage two.

Three more stages await the crews before returning to the Rally Portugal service park in Porto this evening.