Adrien Fourmaux strongly believes that he deserved to be the winner of this year's Rally Paraguay considering the "never give-up" attitude and the pace he showed last weekend.
Fourmaux was second overall after the end of Stage 1, but he slipped behind his teammate Hayden Paddon for 0,5 seconds and was at third place overall after Stage 2 as he lost time during his effort to pass Sebastien Ogier on the stage. However, he dropped from third to seventh when he stopped to change a front left puncture in Stage 3, but he gained one more place in Stage 4 as he was the fastest driver there. The Frenchman was in charge on Friday afternoon as he set the quickest time in Stages 5 and 6 and moved up to fifth. Drama stroke him in Stage 7 when he got a double rear puncture, but he managed to complete that day at fourth overall taking advantage over his rivals' problems. On Saturday, Fourmaux was over one minute behind the third Elfyn Evans and was trying to catch him by setting the fastest time in five stages resulting in cutting Evans's advantage to 3,3 seconds at the end of the superspecial stage which was the final stage of the day. Eventually, Fourmaux managed to get ahead of Evans for 1,6 seconds after the end of Stage 18 and was faster than the championship leader in Stages 19, 20 and 22, thus he did the 2-3 for Hyundai Motorsport at Rally Paraguay and finished in front of Evans for 5,1 seconds. At the end of the eleventh WRC round, Fourmaux overtook Ogier for only one point on the championship standings and is now fourth with 149 points.
"I’m very proud of what we have achieved this weekend", Fourmaux said.
"In particular, seeing that Elfyn was 55 seconds ahead and saying, ‘I’m going to catch him’, I think shows a strong mentality, and it paid off.
"I think we deserved more than the podium this weekend.
"In terms of performance, I think we deserved the win, but fundamentally we got a puncture and Sami didn’t.
"That’s rallying, and ultimately I am very pleased.
"We worked a lot on the car, and this has been a big step forward in the setup of the car, and it seems to be working well.
"It’s very encouraging for these final events".
Photo Credits: Hyundai
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