WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP
The Safari Rally returns to the WRC calendar, followed by a frantic event in Estonia
M-Sport stars Gus Greensmith and Adrien Fourmaux both reached the top-five finishers at the end of the gruelling Safari Rally. A thrilling final day of the event brought five timed stages, and also the Fiesta WRC’s first stage win of the season.
After wildly changeable weather on Saturday, the closing leg was held in warm, dry conditions. Gus Greensmith and co-driver Chris Patterson set off in fifth position on the road with team-mates Adrien Fourmaux and Renaud Jamoul right behind them; through the opening stage of the day Fourmaux began to build a charge towards the front.
The Frenchman was able to run softcompound tyres and capitalised, while Greensmith had suffered punctures on the opening day, eating into his allocation of soft tyres and forcing him to use the hard compound for the closing day.
On the third test of the day – the 9.71km Malewa stage – Fourmaux lit up the sector times and crossed the line to claim his first ever WRC stage win and the first win of the 2021 season for the M-Sport Ford World Rally Team. His time was 4.1 seconds faster than 2019 world champion Ott Tänak in second.
On the next stage, Fourmaux underlined the Fiesta’s potential by holding the fastest time until the seven-time world champion Sebastien Ogier snatched it back from his fellow countryman.
Despite a late scare when his rear tyre came off the rim at the end of the rallyclosing powerstage, Fourmaux held on to his advantage to finish in fourth place in only his third appearance in the Ford Fiesta WRC.
After the celebrations a stewards’ enquiry deemed that Fourmaux had driven too far off the course when cutting a corner on Stage 14 on Sunday morning, resulting in a ten-second penalty. This meant that the Fiestas retained their positions in fourth and fifth overall, but with Greensmith claiming fourth place by a margin of 0.1s.
A couple of weeks later, the championship headed to the gravel stages of Rally Estonia, where M-Sport scored its fourth top-six finish of the campaign.
Teemu Suninen returned to the WRC car and claimed his best result of the season so far, with sixth place. Gus Greensmith also showed strong form on Sunday’s deciding leg with a flurry of promising stage times. He achieved his objective of building his limited experience at World Rally Car level by reaching the finish following his retirement on leg one.
Safari star Fourmaux returned to the WRC2 category in Estonia, fighting hard for the final WRC2 podium spot but ultimately having to settle for fourth.
Next up, the WRC heads to Belgium on August 13-15; look out for a full update in the next issue.