ACROPOLIS RALLY DAY 1

Made up of 141 kilometers of stages, the first day of the Acropolis Rally was already a tough challenge. The leg began with the Thiva and Elatia stages which the drivers reckoned were pretty quick. Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena were first out and once again had to clean the route for their pursuers.

Sébastien Ogier was fourth out on the road and he regretted the fact that he had not really taken full advantage of his position: “We’ve had a rather difficult start to the rally. I was able to relax in the opening kilometers of SS2. Then the car began oversteering a lot and I wasn’t really able to go pedal to the metal on what was my first outing on this stage. Looking on the positive side, I’d say it’s just the start of the rally, but there’s no way I can be satisfied after dropping thirty-five seconds this morning.”

The Eleftherohori stages were much harder on the cars and it was difficult to open up a gap. Second time through Thiva (SS5) – the only stage covered twice by the crews today - Ogier put an end to Solberg’s series of fastest times. The rally took on a more tactical aspect in the last stage of the day. After puncturing in SS5, Loeb went into maximum attack mode and set the quickest time. He was unable to do anything about the tactical choices of his rivals and he finished the day in second place 51.6s behind Solberg.

Ogier who finished the day in fourth place 57.2 s behind, was already looking ahead to the second day’s racing: “We’ve managed to avoid all today’s pitfalls and we’ve got a good position for tomorrow, but the toughest part is still to come! We’ll have to push very hard to pass Mikko and Seb. As for Petter I think it’ll be very difficult to catch him in normal circumstances.”

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