Thierry Neuville edged closer to a second World Rally Championship victory of the season to boost his title hopes at the Acropolis Rally after navigating through Sunday morning’s stages.
The championship leader managed to tread the fine line between pushing and not overstepping the limit to take a 1m02.4s lead into the Power Stage.
That lead is now over title rival Sebastien Ogier who managed to leap ahead of Hyundai’s Dani Sordo [+1m23.3s], with Ott Tanak in fourth [+3m13.7s].
Toyota’s Elfyn Evans rejoined the rally after retiring following a roll on Saturday afternoon, but roll cage damage to Gregoire Munster’s M-Sport Ford Puma put him out of the event.
A violent thunderstorm flooded roads on Saturday night in host city Lamia but the wild weather appeared to miss the morning’s first stage (Inohori 17.47km).
With valuable Super Sunday points on offer, Ogier elected for a big push that was emphasised by his decision to only take one spare wheel to save weight in his GR Yaris.
The Frenchman delivered a blistering time to win the stage by 5.3s from Neuville to take an early lead in the race for the maximum 12 Sunday points.
“It’s about managing it, still trying to keep a good rhythm. I was struggling a bit with the grip, it’s so narrow and you can easily hit a stone. You need to be really committed and I wasn’t,” said Neuville.
Ogier’s time was enough to move to second overall in the rally after Sordo struggled for pace dropping 31.9s.
“The car is good, but the time is very bad. I am driving the stage, in the beginning I had the smallest moment so I just concentrated,” said Sordo.
Tanak was third fastest but the Estonian revealed that his i20 N was carrying an engine issue, while M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux and Toyota duo Evans and Takamoto Katsuta completed the top six.
The conditions in stage 14 (Eleftherohori 18.29km) were vastly different compared to the first test. The effects of Saturday night’s wild storm were clearly visible with the dry rough gravel replaced by slippery muddy sections and puddles.
This stage was tipped to be the toughest of the rally and it lived up to the billing with crews fighting their way through.
Neuville revealed the road was “destroyed” which prompted a cautious run through the test. Not wanting to risk losing Saturday provisional points by an issue, the Belgian was 13.2s slower than Ogier who picked up his eighth stage win of the event.
“The road is destroyed, it’s a nightmare. I was so careful in there,” said Neuville.
It was the opposite for Ogier, desperate to steal as many points away from Neuville as he extended his lead at the top of the Sunday classification, 13.0s ahead of Tanak and 18.5s in front of Neuville.
“The whole weekend was feeling good. I have a great car and could do what I wanted,” said Ogier.
“The misfortune is hard, two and half minutes lost due to a turbo issue. That’s Greece rally. Now we have to recover and the Power Stage will be important for sure.”
Evans and Tanak set identical times to trail Ogier by 2.5s, which helped the former to fourth in the Sunday standings.
There was drama in the WRC2 class as ninth-placed overall Georg Linnamae rolled his Toyota, but luckily he was able to continue.
Sami Pajari maintained his lead in the WRC2 class, siting fifth [+6m07.s] overall ahead of Robert Virves.
A second pass though Eleftherohori will act as the rally ending Power Stage this afternoon.
