Hyundai's technical director believes Fourmaux is currently too emotional to be a WRC winner
Photography by Hyundai
Words by Luke Barry & David Evans
Adrien Fourmaux is currently too emotional to be capable of fighting for wins and championships, says Hyundai technical director François-Xavier Demaison.
But that’s a trait that reminds Demaison of eight-time world champion Sébastien Ogier in the early part of his career.
Fourmaux joined Hyundai at the top of 2025 and immediately delivered a podium on debut in Monte Carlo.
However a mistake in Sweden – while chasing back lost time for stopping on-stage to fasten his helmet chin strap – marked a decline in his season, as he retired thrice in Kenya, the team struggled for pace in Canaries, his suspension broke while second in Portugal and he punctured, then later crashed, in Sardinia.
Fourmaux’s pace has been clear to see but his consistency has been lacking – and while a lot of that isn’t necessarily down to him, his errors in Sweden and Sardinia have brought his temperament into question as they’ve happened after a result has already gone awry.
“He showed that he’s not yet capable of fighting for the wins and championships,” Demaison told DirtFish. “[He needs] to control the emotions, yeah. But I know a good French driver who was also a bit like this when he was younger.”
Ogier was quite a fiery driver when he first broke into the WRC, and was paired with the all-conquering Sébastien Loeb at Citroën. Demaison later worked with Ogier at VW, where he won four consecutive world championships from 2013-16.
Demaison added: “When you’re young, for sure you’re ambitious. You want to win and show to everybody that you are, [but] rally is really a place where experience is really important compared to circuit racing.
“You don’t have 15 corners and you know the grip on each corner because you passed one minute or 90 seconds before. Rally is completely different. You need to make every corner on every rally count.”
Although he wasn’t keen to go into detail on Sunday after Sardinia, Fourmaux has conceded there are “things I need to work on and improve”. Hyundai is committed to assisting him in that process.
“We talk to him and we try to help him,” Demaison confirmed. “Maybe he needs to tell us what he needs. He’s a clever person.
“But yeah, it looks like [they’re] all the same; as soon as they put the helmet and press the switch on the top of the head [the red mist descends].
“I think he has the skill to drive, that’s no question [he needs to] calm down and I’m quite sure that day we have a winner.”
However Demaison feels Fourmaux’s desperation to win is currently getting the better of him.
“I understand he wants to win a rally so much that when it’s something, when any problem happens, it’s just becoming a catastrophe,” he said.
“We have a good driver, he can be fast. He showed that in Kenya – he did a fantastic Sunday, scoring a lot of points. In Spain, he was very fast. He can do it.
“It’s just that in the last fight, the fight with Ogier, maybe where the French, the French rivalry [is overruling his emotions].”
Words:Luke Barry
Tags: Adrien Fourmaux, Sébastien Ogier, WRC, WRC 2025
Publish Date June 14, 2025 DirtFish 
https://dirtfish-editorial.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/2025/06/2025ITALY-_FD_-191-780x1170.jpg June 14, 2025
Up Next
Facebook Conversations