WRC 2025 Rd.7 Day 2 | 2025 | PRESS RELEASE | WRC

Acropolis Rally Greece: Day 2 Ogier and TOYOTA GAZOO Racing in red-hot Acropolis lead fight

2025.6.27 (Fri)

Sébastien Ogier leads the charge for TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team on Acropolis Rally Greece, where the rough and punishing roads created demanding conditions for all five crews on the first full day.

Car 17 (Sébastien Ogier, Vincent Landais)

Ogier led the rally for much of Friday, winning both passes of the Aghii Theodori stage in the morning to build a 6.1-second lead over Ott Tänak (Hyundai), with whom he’d tied for first place after the Thursday super special stage in Athens.

After a remote service in Loutraki, the afternoon featured three stages used only once, so as the second car on the road, Ogier faced the disadvantage of sweeping loose gravel away which benefitted cars starting behind. But the eight-time world champion managed the challenge well, limiting his time losses and finishing Friday only 16.9s from the lead in third overall.

Elfyn Evans picked up damage from an impact on stage four, which he and his mechanics were able to fix successfully in remote service. Like Ogier, Evans faced a road sweeping disadvantage – to an even larger degree given the championship leader was the first car to begin each stage – but a strong, consistent performance delivered fourth place overall at the end of the day.

Takamoto Katsuta and Kalle Rovanperä are separated by 3.8s in sixth and seventh place respectively. Both drivers had to stop and change a wheel and tyre on Friday – Katsuta on stage two and Rovanperä on stage six – losing approximately two minutes each.

Sami Pajari, competing on Acropolis Rally Greece in a GR YARIS Rally1 for the first time, put in a strong performance and was in a podium position after SS2. A technical issue after SS5 curtailed his day early; the team is investigating the cause and preparing the car to restart on Saturday.

GR Yaris Rally2 drivers hold first and second positions in the WRC2 support category, with Oliver Solberg (Printsport) leading Kajetan Kajetanowicz (Rallylab Technology) rounding out the overall top 10.

Quotes:
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)
“It was a ‘normal’ Acropolis day today and very demanding, but I think we have done well. Starting first, second and third and cleaning the road, you will always lose a bit of time. Seb did a great drive from second on the road and Elfyn did what he could and they are still in a good position to attack tomorrow. Taka and Kalle may have lost time changing tyres mid-stage but this is the Acropolis. When I first won this rally in 1986, I was a minute and a half behind after the first stage and by the second day I was leading by two minutes. Anything can still happen!”

Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“It was tough today. It was hot and we definitely suffered opening the road. It was a tough position to be in, especially with how the afternoon stages were, having to clean every one. I am not particularly happy with how the day went and with how difficult it was to get a good feeling in the conditions that we faced. Fourth is a reasonable position to be in with several others having had trouble today, but there is still a long way to go and we need to keep driving a clean rally.”

Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“It’s been a demanding day on the cars, the tyres and the crews – it has been so hot. I wasn’t able to have the pace that I wanted in the morning which was quite annoying. Also, the roads were so rough that with many big hits to the car we picked up some damage and carried this for the rest of the day. On a rally like this you need some luck and we didn’t have it today but tomorrow we can try again.”

Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)
“Overall the day has been very positive; to be where we are from second on the road is better than we expected. The morning loop was especially good for us with the two stage wins in Aghii Theodori. Loutraki on the other hand was a proper taste of what was to come in the afternoon – on those stages the cleaning effect was much harder and we lost some time. I am still pretty pleased with what we achieved and with the car, and with a better start position tomorrow we can be even more competitive.”

Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“Unfortunately we had to change a tyre early in the first stage this morning; we’re not sure what happened but the roads were rough and there was a very big step in the bedrock. But there can be many dramas on Acropolis, so I made an effort to avoid a similar issue later and also avoid any mistakes. By the end of the day we recovered to sixth overall, which is good considering what happened this morning. It is still a long way to go and anything can happen, so I will keep pushing enough while avoiding trouble.”

Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“We had really tough and tricky conditions today. There are so many rocks and anything you hit can lead to trouble. I was pushing in some places but being clever in the tricky sections. It was going quite well in the morning; we were in the game and I was really happy with the car and the driving. Unfortunately after SS5 we found we had a technical issue and couldn’t go any further. It was a pity but Acropolis is so rough that these things can happen, and hopefully we can restart tomorrow.”

End of day two (Friday):
1 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) 1h25m07.4s
2 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +3.0s
3 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +16.9s
4 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m21.5s
5 Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1) +1m43.3
6 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +2m34.3s
7 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +2m38.1s
8 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +2m38.3s
9 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +2m48.4s
10 Kajetan Kajetanowicz/Maciej Szczepaniak (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +3m41.8s
TBC Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1)
(Results as of 21:30 on Friday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)

What's next?
A trio of classic Acropolis stages – Pavliani, Karoutes and Inohori – are run twice on Saturday from 123.44 competitive kilometres. The roads are slightly different to those used in southern Greece on Friday, moving away from the rougher roads filled with bedrock to the tree-lined mountains directly south of Lamia, which houses the service park.