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Adrien Fourmaux believes his struggles for pace at the Central European Rally can be attributed to a mystery issue that his M-Sport World Rally Championship team will investigate.

Fourmaux has been one the WRC’s form drivers this year but has strangely been off the pace on this weekend’s asphalt roads, which yielded a WRC2 victory for the Frenchman last year.

Fourmaux completed Friday’s six stages 1m33.4s adrift of leader Thierry Neuville in what proved to be an extremely difficult day for the 29-year-old. 

A hybrid unit failure on stage four (Strasín 1 – 26.69km) caused by an impact from a jump landing put Fourmaux on the back foot. Under new regulations that came in last month, the unit can no longer be reset, meaning he had to complete the remaining four stages without hybrid boost.

However, Fourmaux felt that the hybrid loss was only part of his problems having highlighted handling issues before the failure. At the midday remote service he said that he was struggling with “everything” when asked what areas of the car were causing strife.

Changes made at the remote service improved the Puma across the afternoon. 

But Fourmaux believes there has been something awry with the car since there start of the event as it is not performing the same as it did on the pre-event test or when he was competing at the Rallylegend event last weekend.    

“Feeling-wise it seems to be better but the time is still really bad, so I have no idea,” Fourmaux told Motorsport.com. 

Adrien Fourmaux, M-Sport Ford World Rally Team

Photo by: M-Sport

“I really struggled on the dirty stuff to slow the car down and rotate it. It is definitely not ideal, but we had a test in the wet – it was really clean with no cuts, and then we went Rallylegend where it was fully dry. 

“But here there is a lot of dirt on the road, so I think we missed something on the test. 

“But also there is something wrong because directly from the start of the event I mentioned to the team that the car doesn’t feel the same as it was in Rallylegend with the same springs, same anti-roll bar and same dampers, the car was already much softer. There is something we need to investigate. 

“We are going to change the anti-roll bar and springs and we will see if there is any difference.”

Fourmaux was one of four Rally1 drivers to suffer a hybrid unit failure on Friday, which added to the frustration. 

Team-mate Gregoire Munster and Toyota’s Sami Pajari also had to run four stages without the boost as teams are unable to reset the devices on safety grounds under the new regulations. 

M-Sport has confirmed that it has replaced the hybrid units on its cars ahead of Saturday’s stages.

“We had an issue in Greece and we have had the issue here, it is really frustrating, so I think it is big shame for everybody,” Fourmaux added.

Adrien Fourmaux believes his struggles for pace at the Central European Rally can be attributed to a mystery issue that his M-Sport World Rally Championship team will investigate.

Fourmaux has been one the WRC’s form drivers this year but has strangely been off the pace on this weekend’s asphalt roads, which yielded a WRC2 victory for the Frenchman last year.

Fourmaux completed Friday’s six stages 1m33.4s adrift of leader Thierry Neuville in what proved to be an extremely difficult day for the 29-year-old. 

A hybrid unit failure on stage four (Strasín 1 – 26.69km) caused by an impact from a jump landing put Fourmaux on the back foot. Under new regulations that came in last month, the unit can no longer be reset, meaning he had to complete the remaining four stages without hybrid boost.

However, Fourmaux felt that the hybrid loss was only part of his problems having highlighted handling issues before the failure. At the midday remote service he said that he was struggling with “everything” when asked what areas of the car were causing strife.

Changes made at the remote service improved the Puma across the afternoon. 

But Fourmaux believes there has been something awry with the car since there start of the event as it is not performing the same as it did on the pre-event test or when he was competing at the Rallylegend event last weekend.    

“Feeling-wise it seems to be better but the time is still really bad, so I have no idea,” Fourmaux told Motorsport.com. 

Adrien Fourmaux, M-Sport Ford World Rally Team

Photo by: M-Sport

“I really struggled on the dirty stuff to slow the car down and rotate it. It is definitely not ideal, but we had a test in the wet – it was really clean with no cuts, and then we went Rallylegend where it was fully dry. 

“But here there is a lot of dirt on the road, so I think we missed something on the test. 

“But also there is something wrong because directly from the start of the event I mentioned to the team that the car doesn’t feel the same as it was in Rallylegend with the same springs, same anti-roll bar and same dampers, the car was already much softer. There is something we need to investigate. 

“We are going to change the anti-roll bar and springs and we will see if there is any difference.”

Fourmaux was one of four Rally1 drivers to suffer a hybrid unit failure on Friday, which added to the frustration. 

Team-mate Gregoire Munster and Toyota’s Sami Pajari also had to run four stages without the boost as teams are unable to reset the devices on safety grounds under the new regulations. 

M-Sport has confirmed that it has replaced the hybrid units on its cars ahead of Saturday’s stages.

“We had an issue in Greece and we have had the issue here, it is really frustrating, so I think it is big shame for everybody,” Fourmaux added.

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Frenchman Henry Hassid (Kessel Racing) won the second and final heat of the Coppa Shell Ferrari Challenge 2024 at Imola’s Enzo e Dino Ferrari circuit, taking the chequered flag ahead of Ritzi and Lewandowski after dominating from the opening lap, despite two outings for the Safety Car.

Andrzej Lewandowski started well from pole, but at Tamburello he immediately lost two positions to Hassid, who became the new race leader, and Andreas Ritzi (CDP – D&C Racing). A few moments later, a contact took Tibor Valint out of the race, again at Tamburello, and the Race Direction opted to send the Safety Car out onto the track.

With 18 minutes to go, Manuela Gostner began to slow down on turn 16 due to an obvious problem with her Ferrari 296 of the Ineco Reparto Corse team. There were yellow flags in the final stretch of the track, but no entry of the safety car, while Manuela’s car was quickly moved from the gravel trap.

In the meantime, Thomas Gostner put together a good comeback that took him up to fourth position, albeit several seconds behind the fight for the victory and the podium.

Halfway through the race, after 15 minutes, an exciting fight for second place emerged between Ritzi and Lewandowski. With Hassid on the road to victory, the poleman and the CDP – D&C Racing driver began to battle for the runner-up slot.

Race Direction deployed the Safety Car a second time with five minutes to go due to a contact that took Fabrizio Fontana out of the race. The Formula Racing driver, already champion of the 488 class, ended up in the gravel at turn 9, with no chance of getting back on track.

This eliminated Hassid’s advantage, and he found himself once again having to manage Ritzi and Lewandowski behind him. On the final lap, however, Hassid was able to pull away from his rivals, taking home the victory that sealed the Coppa Shell title he had already won in the previous round.

Behind the first three, Thomas Gostner finished fourth ahead of Alexander Nussbaumer, Pierluigi Alessandri, Ernst Kirchmayr, James Weiland, Fons Scheltema and Yasutaka Shirasaki. The Japanese driver from Rosso Scuderia completed the overall Top 10.

As for the 488 title, with Fontana out, Wietlisbach (CDP D&C Racing) took home the victory over Sven Shoemer (Ferrari Katowice) and Pino Frascaro (Rossocorsa).

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