Adrien Fourmaux completed the first full day of Safari Rally Kenya in sixth place after surviving another brutal day in the WRC on only his third entry in the sports top tier.
But the Frenchman has been reflecting on the pride he feels on being honoured to represent M-Sport Ford on an event last won by world rally legend Colin McRae in 2002.
“It’s really nice to know the last driver to win the Safari in the WRC was Colin McRae in the M-Sport Focus,” he said.
“It will be really difficult to do exactly the same result although you never know because a lot of things can happen. But I want to stay quite humble. It’s an honour for me to do this rally and I can only say thanks to M-Sport for this opportunity.
“To go to Kenya is really good but with the WRC car it’s a dream and I can’t wait to discover not only the rally but the humanity and the landscape.”
However, such was the challenge of day one, a clean run may see him match or better his best WRC finish of fifth which he scored on his WRC debut in Croatia.
Having impressed on his previous two outings in the Fiesta WRC, the Frenchman was looking to take a more cautious approach with no pressure placed on him by the team.
“I have watched the video of the organizer,” he continued. “In some places we will have to almost stop because it’s really rough, but this is when we have to be smart enough to say: ‘Okay, this section we have to be slow. But this section we can be fast.
“It’s really good that the WRC has gone back to Kenya. Okay, it’s a shorter event this time compared to the old WRC event, but it will still be hard and completely different to what we know.
“I’m a bit too young to remember watching the Safari Rally when it used to be in the WRC, but I have seen some videos and it was amazing to see the Ford Focus with the extra bars at the front.
“We will not have this protection but I am sure we will find some giraffes and elephants on the stages so it will be really interesting and for sure we will have to be careful.”
