Thierry Neuville will carry a 4.1s lead over Sebastien Ogier following an intense head-to-head duel across Saturday’s gravel stages at Acropolis Rally Greece.
The Hyundai driver commenced Saturday’s six-stage leg with a 9.7s lead over Toyota’s Ogier but that advantage came under serious pressure.
The quartet of morning stages were not as punishing on the cars and tyres as first feared, which helped provide a platform for a thrilling battle between Neuville and Ogier.
The tussle ebbed and flowed across the morning with Neuville hanging onto the lead by 3.7s heading into the afternoon’s two stages.
Deteriorating road conditions and fears that the revised Hankook hard tyres would struggle to cope with the rocky start to stage 12 resulted in the rally organisers shortening it by 4.5km to lower the puncture risk. The call to shorten the stage was lead by Ogier.
Neuville issued a stunning response to Ogier in the revised stage, taking 7.1s out of nine-time world champion, to extend his lead out to 10.1s.
“I had a good stage. The car was working amazing. It was super quick and I was really enjoying it,” said Neuville.
Sebastien Ogier, Vincent Landais, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota GR Yaris Rally1
Photo by: Toyota Racing
Ogier admitted he could do nothing about Neuville’s pace on the stage. However, in Saturday’s final test (Menalo Mt 2) Ogier produced a stunning effort to eclipse Neuville’s effort by 6.7s and cut the lead down to 4.1s going into Sunday’s final four stages.
Neuville clipped a bank in the stage and faced a nervous drive back to service with coolant leaking from his i20 N.
Meanwhile the battle for third took another twist. Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux started the day in a comfortable third place and appeared on course to end the day in podium positions just waiting to capitalise on any misfortune to strike Neuville and Ogier.
But Fourmaux hit trouble in stage 12 when he was forced to pull over to change a punctured front-right tyre. The stoppage cost the Hyundai driver more than two minutes, dropping them out of the podium positions and into sixth.
Fourmaux’s puncture handed third to Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta (+2m17.0s) as his rise up the leaderboard continued. Katsuta started Saturday’s leg in sixth but was able to catapult ahead of M-Sport-Ford duo Josh McErlean and Martins Sesks.
However, Fourmaux managed to recover to fourth (+3m00.6s) after championship leader Elfyn Evans was forced to stop and change a front-right puncture on the final stage of the day.
Evans lost almost two minutes changing the wheel which demoted the Welshman from fifth to seventh (+4m43.1s).
Elfyn Evans, Scott Martin, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota GR Yaris Rally1
Photo by: Toyota Racing
“It happens, it came very unexpectedly but the deflation was very sudden. It was very close to a crash actually because it was right in front of a corner, but all okay,” said Evans.
With M-Sport’s McErlean in fifth, Toyota’s Sami Pajari climbed from ninth to sixth [+4m35.6s] on Saturday as he took advantage of the punctures sustained for Evans and Hyundai’s Dani Sordo in stage 13.
Frustrated by a struggle for speed on Friday, Sordo bounced back on Saturday. The WRC veteran, piloting the third i20 N Rally1, put in a much stronger display before a front-right tyre deflation struck on the day’s final stage.
Sordo was able to press on and avoid having to stop to change the wheel, but dropped more than a minute, leaving the WRC veteran in eighth overall [+5m17.8s].
WRC2 class leader Andreas Mikkelsen continued to impress as he held onto ninth and the class lead by 13.9s over Robert Virves.
It proved to be a difficult day for M-Sport’s Sesks, who was perplexed by his lack of speed after ending Friday’s leg in fifth.
Joshua Mcerlean, Eoin Treacy, M-Sport Ford World Rally Team Ford Puma Rally1
Photo by: M-Sport
The Latvian’s lack of pace dropped the Ford driver to seventh by the midday service, but worse was to follow as his Ford Puma struggled to fire back into life and was 19 minutes late out of service, incurring a 3m10s penalty. Sesks headed back to the final service of the day in 11th position.
Title contender Oliver Solberg rejoined the rally after crashing out in Friday’s stage seven, as the Monte Carlo winner ended the day outside of the points paying positions. M-Sport’s Jon Armstrong once again turned heads with his pace after also returning to the rally after yesterday’s turbo failure.
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