WRC | Rally Acropolis, SS13-14: Sordo too cautious, Ogier is second

The third and final stage of the 2024 Acropolis Rally opened under the sign of Sébastien Ogier. The 8-time world champion won both special stages held in the early Italian morning, namely the 17.47-kilometer SS13 Inohori and the 18.29-kilometer SS14 Eleftherohori 1.

Thanks to these results and the very, very cautious approach by Dani Sordo, the Toyota Gazoo Racing driver was able to recover one position and thus move up to second place in the overall standings.

Ogier now occupies the position of honour with a 21-second margin over Sordo and a gap of just over a minute from Thierry Neuville, who continues to lead the way despite having chosen a very cautious approach himself, especially in this morning’s second special stage.

Eleftherohori, in fact, presented some muddy sections, while others were dry and full of treacherous stones. This is why the leader of the race and of the World Championship preferred to lose seconds and not take risks.

This, however, also had an important meaning for the Super Sunday standings, with Ogier taking the lead and leading the Hyundais of Ott Tanak – second – and Thierry Neuville. With nothing to lose, Ogier is taking risks that, instead, the Alzenau drivers cannot take to avoid throwing away an excellent result also for the chase for the Constructors’ world title.

Ogier, on Super Sunday, now has a 13-second lead over Ott Tanak, 18.5sec over Therry Neuville and 24.8sec over teammate Elfyn Evans. If the Sunday standings remain as they are, Neuville would only lose a couple of points to Ogier, although the Power Stage is still to be held, which will award other important points for the titles.

As for the rest of the general classification, everything remained unchanged. The only significant change was Fabrizio Zaldivar’s overtaking of Georg Linnamae. The South American is now ninth, while the Estonian closes the overall Top 10.

Sami Pajari continues to lead the way in WRC2 with a 28.5s lead over Robert Virves, while Yohan Rossel, on fire, has significantly reduced his gap from second place in the class. There are now 17.3s between him and Virves, but there is just one special stage to go in the Greek event…