The Acropolis Rally continues to be an event for the strong-hearted. The first special stage of the second leg, staged this morning on the 28.67-kilometer Rengini route, provided yet another twist in a weekend that was nothing short of surprising.
Ott Tanak, who yesterday finished in the lead of the general classification, was forced to stop twice during the almost 30 kilometers of the special to replace two wheels, thus losing almost 4 minutes to the best.
The Estonian himself explained what happened once he reached the finish line of the special. The first stop came due to a tire outside the rim, while the second due to a bent rim. A shocking start to the morning for Tanak, who had to give up the lead of the race, even finishing outside the podium zone, now occupying the fourth position.
Ott’s double problem has thus left room for Dani Sordo. The Spaniard, third in this morning’s special, has inherited the lead of the event from his teammate and Hyundai can still think of managing a potential one-two, because Thierry Neuville has moved up to second place.
The current situation of the provisional general classification, however, tells much more. Neuville, despite not having taken any risks, won the special with a 2 tenth advantage over Sébastien Ogier, but also with a 16″2 margin over Sordo. This brought him back to 7″2 from his teammate, who now leads the operations after what happened to Tanak.
It is realistic to think that Hyundai have studied a change of position between Neuville and Sordo today to try to give the Belgian as many points as possible to help him in his pursuit of the world title.
Sébastien Ogier, for his part, climbed back into the podium zone by taking advantage of Tanak’s misadventures, but for the moment he can only hope that something happens to the riders ahead of him. He is more than 1 minute and 40 seconds behind Neuville, so it will be almost impossible to recover it all without something happening to the Belgian.
As for the PS7 standings, only Ogier was able to keep up with Neuville. Sordo, as mentioned, finished the race 16″2 behind his teammate, while all the others did even worse. Elfyn Evans, fourth, is 21″5 behind, while Gregoire Munster is 23″5 behind, closing the Top 5.
There has also been a change at the top of the WRC2. Sami Pajari took advantage of a less than brilliant performance by Robert Virves to overtake him and take the lead with a 12.1″ advantage over the Estonian. The fight, however, seems to be open. Yohan Rossel, after yesterday’s puncture, is looking for a great comeback to grab at least one position on the podium which is now just 2 seconds away (Fabrizio Zaldivar is just ahead of him in the general classification).
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