Sordo leads after Tanak suffers double puncture

Hyundai’s Dani Sordo took the lead of the Acropolis Rally after World Rally Championship title contender Ott Tanak suffered two punctures on stage seven.

Tanak started Saturday with a 21.8 second lead over Sordo, but in the day’s opening stage, Rengini, 28.67 km, drama struck twice.

The 2019 world champion suffered a puncture on the right side of the tyre five kilometres into the stage, forcing the Estonian to pull over to change the wheel. Tanak and co-driver Martin Jarveoja lost just 1m21.6s, but their lead in the rally had evaporated.

To make matters worse, 10 kilometers later he suffered a second puncture, this time on the right front. Tanak eventually reached the end of the stage with a loss of 4m06.4s, dropping him from the lead to fourth overall.

“The first one was off the edge and the second one was a bent edge,” said Tanak, who was the only one of the five title contenders to stay out of trouble on Friday.

Tanak will have to wait two more stages for his tyres before reaching Saturday’s tyre change zone, as there is no service scheduled.

Tanak’s double puncture gave Sordo a 7.2 second lead over teammate and championship leader Thierry Neuville.

“It’s nice to be a rally leader, but I don’t like this kind of thing,” said Sordo.

“We have to win the stages, not because the others have problems. I didn’t take any risks, I’m going to continue with my goal. (Neuville) and the others can push, I have one mission. Of course it would be nice to win.”

Thierry Neuville, Martijn Wydaeghe, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1

Photo by: Romain Thuillier / Hyundai Motorsport

Neuville won the stage by 0.2 seconds over Ogier, who moved up to third place due to Tanak’s problems.

“We had a clean run through, it was quite rough in the middle section so I took it a bit more cautiously. Totally different conditions to yesterday, we also changed the car setup so I feel better with the car.

When asked if he had a response to Ogier’s comments on Friday about his driving skills when the road opened, he said: “No comment.”

In WRC2, Sami Pajari took over the class lead from Robert Virves, who was at the disadvantage of being stuck in the dust created by the delayed Tanak.