How Adrien Fourmaux’s WRC Japan exit proves mental strength is vital in motorsport

A robust and resilient mental game is equally as important to an athlete as the necessary physical skills to be successful in sport.

Managing emotions and maintaining focus can be just as valuable when searching for the tenths of seconds required to conquer elite level motorsport. But also when situations are not going to plan, demonstrating mental dexterity can provide an edge to unlock speed.

Over the last 18 years covering a multitude of motorsport disciplines as a journalist you are faced with conducting countless interviews with drivers that have retired from events. On the whole they tend to follow a similar pattern: the driver is either angry, frustrated or upset, it’s a negative downbeat scenario. Therefore when an interview follows a different trajectory, they stand out, become an anomaly and equally fascinating. At Rally Japan one of these interviews unfolded.

Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux seemed to be on course for what would have been a remarkable podium finish after finding a way to overcome an i20 N that is not at home on asphalt. The Frenchman managed to extract speed while his more experienced team-mates battled a myriad of problems. But it all unravelled in spectacular fashion in tricky wet conditions. Fourmaux, constrained by a misted-up windscreen, was caught out by a slippery section and briefly ran off the road, down a bank and clouted some trees that ripped the passenger door from the car. While Fourmaux and co-driver Alex Coria, who seemingly didn’t flinch by being exposed to the elements, reached the stage end, the damage was too severe to continue.

After coming so close to achieving what would have been one of the best results of the season considering the circumstances, Fourmaux could be forgiven for being angry and frustrated. But he was the complete opposite. The following explosion of positivity is all part of a bigger picture mental attitude that Fourmaux believes will bring results not just for him, but for his Hyundai team downbeat after being on the wrong end of a drubbing by Toyota this year.

“The most important thing was to improve the car on tarmac and we did. It is better to be on the podium and fighting for the win. But at the end if we were fifth all weekend and then the others make a mistake or have a drama and we are on the podium, it is not what we are looking for here in Japan,” said Fourmaux.

“For me, we can be pleased with the two days and also my concern was how it was going to be on the wet, but the car was working surprisingly well and we checked the speed, and it was there and we are really positive.

“For sure, we wanted the result and at the end we all fight for a good result, but this brings motivation and commitment [to the team] that we are not far off. We just need to work with what we have got and go ahead. This is the most important thing, the team stays committed and 100% involved in it. For myself, I have no doubt. I will always continue, if you see my mentality from the beginning of the rally, that I will drive what I have got and let’s see.

“I don’t want to be down because if I’m down then I will start to be like this about the next rally. It was a small mistake, we have some things to improve, I just need to keep being positive. I do not want to be down because I don’t want the team to be down.”

This positivity stems from work that Fourmaux has carried out after enlisting the help of a sports psychologist this season. In the past, the 30-year-old has been guilty of letting his emotions get the better of him. There has been moments this year where something has gone wrong and it has led to a downward spiral where the negativity has resulted in more mistakes. Sweden and Sardinia come to mind when forgetting to fasten his crash helmet and a puncture prompted a series of mistakes that ultimately ended in retirements.

Fourmaux’s management of emotions has markedly improved since working with a sports psychologist, but even after the Central European Rally he felt the effects of letting negative thoughts cloud his mind. In Japan, his mindset shifted to a more positive outlook and Fourmaux believes this approach is more conducive to lifting his team to help them navigate out of a difficult campaign.

“When it is negative, it is negative, but I always want to see the positive because for me being positive brings positives, that is my mentality. If you are always down, you go down, down, down,” he added.

Adrien Fourmaux, Alexandre Coria, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1

Photo by: Hyundai Motorsport

“In CER I blamed myself at the end of the rally, because at some point I gave up a little bit, because I was down and we had lost a lot of time in two stages. This rally [in Japan] I was like it doesn’t matter the conditions, I will go for it.

“It is a mind game. I don’t know the percentage of how much. You can have the best car but if you don’t trust yourself and if you don’t trust you have got the best car, it is difficult. If you don’t have the things that make the car at the top level, you really have to have the mentality to go for it. If you think that the car does not have the pace then your mind goes down.”

But what was impressive were the lengths Fourmaux went to ensure his positive outlook was not disrupted by negative thoughts in Japan.

“I always like to arrive at a rally coming to fight. To be fair at this rally I stayed a bit away from the team because they were quite down arriving here,” he added. “I just decided to stay away and didn’t send them messages too much between stages. I just focused on my race. The positive feelings were coming back into the office in the service park without sending messages, so maybe it is the way I should operate. It is nothing personal, it is a case of, let me drive and I will drive.”

There is a lot to be said about Fourmaux’s attitude at Rally Japan. It can’t be easy to block out the noise, especially in the cutthroat world of top-level motorsport. But there is no doubt that the way Fourmaux carried himself in what, on the face of it, was a disastrous weekend for Hyundai, clearly will help inspire the team to bigger and greater things as it looks to close the gap to Toyota.

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— The Motorsport.com Team