Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville moved into the lead of Acropolis Rally Greece after a punishing Friday morning loop that inflicted a series of punctures to crews.
The 2024 world champion and two-time Acropolis winner ended the opening gravel loop 11.0s clear of Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier, while M-Sport Ford’s Jon Armstrong impressed to hold third, 21.2s from the lead.
Nine-time world champion Ogier held the overnight lead after winning Thursday night’s super special, but the Frenchman lost the advantage on the first gravel stage on Friday morning.
Making the most of their road position advantage, Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux claimed the opening stage by 0.1s from Neuville, with Ogier dropping 2.2s. It was enough for Neuville to take the rally lead to the tune of 0.7s from Fourmaux, as Ogier fell to third.
Neuville’s time in the lead was short-lived as team-mate Fourmaux blitzed stage three, edging Neuville by 1.9s. Fourmaux looked set to lead at the mid-leg remote service but a front-right puncture on the following Stiri test cost the Frenchman 31.4s and dropped him from first to fourth.
Fourmaux’s unfortunate tyre drama handed Neuville the lead as the crews headed to the midday remote service.
“It was quite close at the end with the tyres,” Neuville said. “I should have started with six new tyres this morning, that would have been better. It’s incredibly rough out there.”
Jon Armstrong, Shane Byrne, M-Sport Ford World Rally Team Ford Puma Rally1
Photo by: M-Sport
Armstrong’s morning was one of the standout stories. The Northern Irishman went third-fastest on Parnassos Mt and matched Neuville’s time on Stiri to climb to third overall, 7.1s behind Ogier.
“We had quite a good run,” Armstrong said after Stiri. “The stage is tricky and gets a bit more rough towards the end. I just tried to focus on being clean and getting a lot of traction. We just tried to use our road position.”
Ogier played down any sense of control after a morning dominated by rock impacts, delaminations and tyre management. Crews are running revised hard compound tyre from Hankook this weekend.
“It’s just pure luck, a lottery. The tyres are not prepared for this condition,” said Ogier.
It proved to be an encouraging start to the rally for M-Sport, who capitalised on their road position advantage. Josh McErlean and Martins Sesks survived the morning to make it three M-Sport Ford Pumas inside the top six overall. McErlean held fifth, 36.8s off the lead, with Sesks sixth despite tyre concerns after the final stage of the loop.
Toyota’s Sami Pajari was seventh after a strange loss of power on Stiri, while Takamoto Katsuta reached the tyre fitting zone eighth after a rear-right delamination.
Championship leader Elfyn Evans was severely punished by having to open the roads and ended the loop in ninth, 1m18.6s off the lead.
Elfyn Evans, Scott Martin, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota GR Yaris Rally1
Photo by: Toyota Racing
“The morning’s generally been much worse than even what we expected, and we expected it to be bad,” said Evans. “The road sweeping was horrendous, these massive stones on the uphill hairpins. For sure I didn’t do a great job of it, but it’s still very bad.”
Evans did however fare much better than team-mate Oliver Solberg who picked up a front-left puncture in the day’s opening stage and lost more than a minute, leaving him in 14th position at the remote service.
Dani Sordo’s strong start to the rally ended on SS3 when he stopped to change a front-right puncture and lost almost two minutes.
In WRC2, Andreas Mikkelsen leads Robert Virves by 1.5s.
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– The Autosport.com Team
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