Adrien Fourmaux at the start of the Terras d'Aboboreira

In preparation for the upcoming Rally Portugal (May 15-18), Adrien Fourmaux and Alexandre Coria will be fielded by Hyundai Motorsport at the start of the Terras d'Aboboreira (May 2-3), which takes place in one of the regions where the special stages of the world round are marked. The French drivers will have the opportunity to perfect their knowledge of the i20 while working on the Hankook tires.

Published 17/04/2025 à 10:03

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Adrien Fourmaux at the start of Terras d'Aboboreira

Adrien Fourmaux and Alexandre Coria will have the opportunity to prepare for the Rally of Portugal during the Terras d'Aboboreira (Photo: Nikos Katikis/DPPI)

If there are people in the middle of the rally The organizers of the regional events are the ones who are welcoming the rule limiting the number of test days that came into effect in 2023. Since it was decided that teams would only have 21 test days to be distributed among their crews over the entire season, there have never been so many additional participations.

Since September last year, Thierry Neuville for example, he competed in 4 races at Ciudad de Granada, Herbst in Austria and Mediterraneo last year and then recently at Sierra Morena. Kalle Rovanperä was lined up at Dévoluy in December and then at Arctic in February while his teammate and championship leader Elfyn Evans was also at Sierra Morena. The increase in entries this season is mainly due to the emergence of Hankook as the sole manufacturer. As teams do not have enough time and kilometers to understand how to make the new tires work, they believe it is necessary to seek information outside the WRC.

This time it will be the case ofAdrien fourmaux and Alexandre Coria (pending an announcement from Toyota ?) during the Terras d'Aboboreira. The 3^e The Portuguese Championship round (May 2-3) will be held near the town of Amarante, located 60 km east of Porto. This event, which features 114,39 km of timed stages divided into 10 SS, has the advantage of taking place on terrain similar to the Saturday leg of the Rally Portugal. By regulation, the crew will not be able to use the special stages that will also be used by the WRC 15 days later. This will nevertheless be an excellent preparation event. It would not be surprising if other drivers aiming for WRC2 in particular were to line up at the start.

For Fourmaux, it will be the 2nd^e participation in this rally. In 2020, he had already come to train for the world round with the Fiesta Rally2 and he came very close to winning there in front of the local stars. This preparation race will allow the Northerner to accelerate his understanding of the Hankook tires, the use of which is truly one of the keys to success for this season. With the technical team, it will be necessary to manage to use the South Korean tires well on sandy roads which can prove brittle during the second laps.