Sébastien Ogier is the lead TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team driver in fourth position after an extremely demanding first day of Acropolis Rally Greece.
The Acropolis has a reputation for rough and rocky conditions and this year’s edition had been predicted to be the toughest seen for many years based on the reconnaissance of the stages carried out by the crews earlier this week. Friday would be the longest day of the rally in terms of competitive distance, with 135.02 kilometres to be tackled across two loops of three stages in the mountains around Lamia.
TGR-WRT made a strong start to the event with a mixed tyre strategy across its cars working well in the morning. Ogier took more of the softer-compound Pirelli rubber than his rivals and made the most of the extra grip to win two of the morning’s three stages and take a lead of 5.9 seconds into mid-day service.
Takamoto Katsuta had also made a bright start, carrying only one spare tyre to his rivals’ two, and won SS2 to move to within 0.2s of the lead. Unfortunately, a misunderstood pace-note on the third stage would result in him damaging the right-rear of his car and being forced to stop. The team has begun to fix the car with a view to it returning to action under restart rules.
Elfyn Evans’ hopes of a top result sadly took a double hit during the morning. Firstly he had to stop and change a wheel and tyre in SS1, before an issue relating to the turbocharger restricted the available power for the remainder of the loop. While over eight minutes had been lost in total, the team was able to fix the problem during mid-day service so that he could return to competing at normal speed during the afternoon.
Ogier began the afternoon with another stage win to increase his advantage, but would also be slowed down by a turbo-related problem at the end of the day: the team is investigating what has caused the issues seen. Ogier was able to limit the time lost to just over two minutes, and therefore remain in sight of the podium places with two days still to go.
Quotes:
Jari-Matti Latvala (Team Principal)
“It has been a tough day for us, to tell the truth. Unfortunately there are days like this in motorsport and you have to accept that sometimes. On both Elfyn and Seb’s cars we have had issues with the turbo and at the moment we are investigating what has caused them. Unfortunately we lost Taka from the fight at the front as well this morning. It’s disappointing, but Seb did an amazing job to lose less time than we expected in the last stage, so still the game is on. It might not look so good at the moment but these are rough stages and things can happen like we’ve seen today, so it can still turn around for the better. We just need to keep going and keep the faith.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“It was a disastrous start for us this morning. We picked up a puncture in the first stage: there was a compression in the road which we knew about, and we tried to slow down for it but clearly not enough. Then, towards the end we had a loss of power and we weren’t sure what the reason was, but the team was able to fix the issue at lunchtime. It’s obviously very difficult now with the time that we’ve lost, but tomorrow is another opportunity to try some things with the car to have a good feeling, and the main thing will be to just get through another long day.”
Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)
“I was pleased with my morning. I think we did all we could from second on the road: the surface was pretty loose so being in the lead was a bit of a surprise, but I think we optimised the strategy with the tyre choice, having more softs than the others. The rhythm with the driving was pretty good too. This afternoon it was still all going well and the feeling was pretty good. Then we had a loss of power near the end of the penultimate stage. There was not much we could do and we just tried to finish the loop minimising the time loss. It was a tough day for the team but there’s still a long day tomorrow and Sunday so we’re not giving up.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“It had been a pretty good start to the morning. The car felt amazing and without a big push I was able to set the fastest time in SS2. Of course, there was some road cleaning effect which helped, but overall I was happy. So I just continued to drive in the same way in SS3. Unfortunately, in a twisty and forested section I misunderstood the information in the pace-note. So what I had in mind going into the corner wasn’t correct, I went wide and got damage on the right-rear. It’s a really hard moment but I just try to move forward and keep working hard.”
End of day one (Friday):
1 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) 1h40m16.9s
2 Dani Sordo/Cándido Carrera (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +21.8s
3 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +45.2s
4 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +2m26.4s
5 Robert Virves/Aleks Lesk (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +3m10.9s
6 Sami Pajari/Enni Mälkönen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +3m12.4s
7 Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) +4m08.4s
8 Kajetan Kajetanowicz/Maciej Szczepaniak (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +4m09.0s
9 Fabrizio Zaldivar/Marcelo Der Ohannesian (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +4m19.7s
10 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Citroën C3 Rally2) +4m22.5s
20 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +9m55.5s
TBC Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +39m45.7s
(Results as of 20:30 on Friday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
What's next?
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.
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Rd.10 Acropolis Rally Greece
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