After narrowly missing out on the World Rally Championship manufacturers’ title to Toyota, Hyundai has changed its strategy for 2025 by employing a full-time third car driver it hopes can deliver the prize.
Adrien Fourmaux is the driver tasked with the honour of piloting a third factory Hyundai i20 N Rally1 in next season’s expanded 14-round calendar, in a move that team principal Cyril Abiteboul hopes will offer the Korean marque the final piece of its WRC jigsaw.
Fourmaux joining Hyundai for 2025 is not a surprise with the Frenchman’s stock on the rise following a breakthrough season for M-Sport that delivered five third-place finishes (Sweden, Kenya, Finland, Poland, Japan) on his way to fifth in the championship standings. His success led to the 29-year-old being linked to the team throughout the second half of the season.
It is also pertinent to note that this isn’t the first time Hyundai has tried to prise the driver away from M-Sport-Ford having been linked to the team at the end of 2023. But now Hyundai has landed its target and Fourmaux’s mission is clear, having managed to score 45 points more than the total accumulated by Hyundai’s third car crews this year.
“Looking at what we have done this year – and frankly it was a good year but a season where we missed out on the constructors championship by a little bit [three points] – looking at the different challenges for next year and in particular Toyota going for a big push with four cars on a permanent basis, we thought to take a slightly different approach with a permanent third car,” Abiteboul told Motorsport.com.
“We want to have a focused effort from all three crews, and in that context, have Adrien Fourmaux in the team.”
This signing marks a significant change in strategy for Hyundai which has traditionally split its third car across multiple crews. This season it took that to another level with Esapekka Lappi (Sweden, Kenya, Latvia, Finland, Chile), Dani Sordo (Portugal, Sardinia, Greece) and Andreas Mikkelsen (Monte Carlo, Croatia, Poland, Central Europe and Japan) sharing the third car.
The strategy seemed good on paper, and Lappi’s victory in Sweden and Sordo’s three top-five finishes certainly proved it could deliver. But even Abiteboul admits that in hindsight the extended time gaps for crews between events made it difficult for his drivers to deliver.
“Was it [our third car plan] the best choice? Maybe, maybe not….
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