Quotes:
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)
“It is always nice to be in Greece for such a historic rally as the Acropolis. Coming here in the summer again, it is very warm this week and it will be a tough week for everyone, especially the crews in the cars. They’re certainly expecting a tougher rally than the previous years and they’ve been asking how I would approach it. These days you can’t drive too cautiously - the cars are tough and can take a lot, but to avoid the biggest rocks and hits can be smart. It’s good to have everyone through this first stage cleanly, ready for the proper challenge tomorrow.”

Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“The first stage was nice to start off with, and all was feeling fine with the car after shakedown with no issues, so I’m ready to get properly underway tomorrow. The Acropolis is being held at an earlier time of year so I am expecting some very hot and difficult conditions. It’s going to be a tough day tomorrow; we have to drive fast, that’s clear. But there also needs to be a bit of thinking and some care put into the car and the tyres.”

Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“It was nice to start with a stage for the fans in Athens. I didn’t realise this was the 69th running of the rally before the start; I hope that brings us some luck! It was a challenging shakedown with quite rough conditions. We made some small changes with the setup which we wanted to test but for tomorrow we have an idea of what’s coming and how the car is. I’m expecting quite a big challenge still as the conditions this year are very rough, tougher than ever before.”

Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)
“Athens is a beautiful city and Greek fans are very enthusiastic with lots of passion, so this was a nice way to start the rally. It was a bit difficult on the first pass of shakedown with the dust but it is a taste of what is to come this weekend, with the tough conditions we are going to have to face. It’s going to be extremely hot and rough, as always in Greece, but we are well prepared.”

Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“It is nice to be back in Greece, even if it feels warmer than it used to be with the event moving from September to June. The car feels good and is working well; we are still looking for the perfect balance but the proper stages are much more challenging than the shakedown, so it’ll be a very demanding weekend. I’ll try to do a steady drive, going through every stage without problems and hopefully that should lead to a good result.”

Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“The Athens super special is short but nice for the fans; it’s cool to have something different and it was still a tricky stage. I had quite a good feeling with the car already on shakedown; we found a few small things. It was already quite dusty, so we’ll have to see how it is during the rally itself. This is always one of the most challenging rounds of the season due to how rough it is, so you need to be clever.”

End of day one (Thursday):
1= Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 1m18.1s
1= Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +0.0
3 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +0.9
4 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1.0
5 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1.1
6= Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1.5
6= Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1.5
8 Mārtiņš Sesks/Renārs Francis (Ford Puma Rally1) +2.2
9 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +3.0
10 Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy (Ford Puma Rally1) +3.2
(Results as of 21:30 on Thursday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)

What's next?
Friday’s action totals 121.76 competitive kilometres and begins to the west of Athens around Loutraki, where a loop of three stages on familiar roads are followed by a remote service. Three further stages are then tackled on the route back north to the service park in Lamia, including the Stiri test last driven in 1997.