What drama and action the first sixstages of the WRC Acropolis Rally have served up for us.
Two Toyota turbos chewed up, punishing punctures, rough roads, and slippy conditions for the roadsweeper Thierry Neuville, it is Ott Tanak that holds a 21.8sec overnight lead on Dani Sordo and his Belgian teammate for a Hyundai 1-2-3 at the end of Day One.
End of day one (Friday):
01: Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) – 1h40m16.9s
02: Dani Sordo/Cándido Carrera (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) + 21.8s
03: Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) + 45.2s
04: Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) + 2m26.4s
05: Robert Virves/Aleks Lesk (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) + 3m10.9s
06: Sami Pajari/Enni Mälkönen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) + 3m12.4s
07: Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) + 4m08.4s
08: Kajetan Kajetanowicz/Maciej Szczepaniak (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) + 4m09.0s
09: Fabrizio Zaldivar/Marcelo Der Ohannesian (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) + 4m19.7s
10: Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Citroën C3 Rally2) + 4m22.5s
Saturday at a glance:
Saturday is a marathon day, with the first crew to leave Lamia at 07:15 in the morning and only return around 16 hours later. The route heads as far south as Loutraki on the Gulf of Corinth, with five gravel stages – only one of which is a repeat pass – being followed by a super special stage on the route back to Lamia.