Ogier moves to second as Neuville retains lead

Thierry Neuville has moved closer to his second World Rally Championship victory of the season and boosts his title hopes at the Acropolis Rally after a superb performance through the stages on Sunday morning.

The championship leader managed to walk the fine line between perseverance and not pushing the limit and entered the Power Stage with a lead of 1.02.4 seconds.

That lead now lies with title rival Sebastien Ogier, who managed to overtake Hyundai’s Dani Sordo (+1m23.3s), with Ott Tanak in fourth place (+3m13.7s).

Toyota’s Elfyn Evans returned to the rally after retiring on Saturday afternoon following a somersault, but damage to the roll cage of Gregoire Munster’s M-Sport Ford Puma ruled him out.

A heavy thunderstorm caused flooding on the roads in host city Lamia on Saturday evening, but the wild weather looked set to derail the morning’s first stage (Inohori 17.47km).

With valuable Super Sunday points on the horizon, Ogier opted for a big push, emphasised by his decision to carry just one spare wheel to save weight on his GR Yaris.

The Frenchman set a blazing fast time to win the stage by 5.3 seconds ahead of Neuville, taking a 12-point lead early in the race and securing Sunday’s maximum score.

“It’s about trying to keep a good rhythm. I struggled a bit with the grip, it’s so narrow and you can easily hit a rock. You have to be really committed and I wasn’t,” said Neuville.

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

Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images

Ogier’s time was enough to move up to second place in the rally’s overall standings, after Sordo struggled to maintain his pace and dropped back 31.9 seconds.

“The car is good, but the time is very bad. I’m driving the stage, at the beginning I had the smallest moment, so I just concentrated,” said Sordo.

Tanak was in third place but the Estonian reported an engine problem with his i20 N, while M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux and Toyota duo Evans and Takamoto Katsuta completed the top six.

Conditions on stage 14 (Eleftherohori 18.29km) were vastly different to the first test. The effects of Saturday night’s wild storm were clearly visible, with the dry, rough gravel replaced by slippery, muddy patches and puddles.

This stage was seen as the toughest of the rally and it certainly lived up to that claim as the teams fought their way through the rally.

Neuville revealed that the road was “devastated”, leading to a cautious run during the test. The Belgian did not want to risk losing provisional points on Saturday due to a problem, so he was 13.2 seconds slower than Ogier, who took his eighth stage win of the event.

“The road is destroyed, it’s a nightmare. I was so careful in there,” Neuville said.

For Ogier it was the other way around: he wanted to steal as many points from Neuville as possible and extend his lead at the top of the Sunday classification, 13.0 seconds ahead of Tanak and 18.5 seconds ahead of Neuville.

Sébastien Ogier, Vincent Landais, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota GR Yaris Rally1

Photo by: Toyota Racing

“I felt good all weekend, I have a great car and I could do what I wanted,” said Ogier.

“The accident is hard, two and a half minutes lost due to a turbo problem. That’s the Rally of Greece. Now we have to recover and the Power Stage will be important for sure.”

Evans and Tanak posted identical times, finishing 2.5 seconds behind Ogier, leaving the former in fourth place on Sunday.

There was drama in the WRC2 class when Georg Linnamae, who was in ninth place overall, flipped his Toyota, but was fortunately able to continue.

Sami Pajari maintained his lead in the WRC2 class and finished fifth (+6m07.s) overall, ahead of Robert Virves.

A second pass through Eleftherohori will serve as the rally’s closing Power Stage this afternoon.