WRC Acropolis: Sordo puncture hands Neuville the lead

Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville has inherited the Acropolis Rally lead after team-mate Dani Sordo became the latest World Rally Championship Rally1 driver to hit trouble.

Sordo had moved into the lead of the rally on the opening stage of the day when team-mate and overnight leader Ott Tanak suffered two punctures in separate incidents.

He started the afternoon’s stages with a 10.3s advantage over Neuville but his time in the lead was short-lived as drama struck in stage nine [Aghii Theodori 1, 25.87km], held in extreme heat.

The right rear tyre on his i20 N let go during the stage after hitting a rock causing damage to the rear bodywork of his car, which allowed dust to come inside the cabin. Sordo pressed on on three tyres and reached the stage end ceding 51.3s.

The time loss handed Neuville the lead of the rally for the first time this weekend where he will stand to collect 18 provisional points should the Belgian end the day in the lead.

Speaking at the stage end before Sordo suffered this tyre failure, Neuville said: “My goals are very simple, get through the day without a problem, especially without a puncture.

“I’m fighting a bit with the rear, tricky conditions in there, lots of loose gravel I am trying to avoid.

“The second pass will be tough. There are already lots of the sharp stones and anything can happen here in the second pass. Hopefully, we get through, have that little bit of luck we need, everything feels good in the car.”

While Neuville claimed the rally lead, the stage was won by Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier, who took 5.7s out of the former’s advantage.

With the gap to leader Neuville standing at 1m21.5s, Ogier felt the margin to the championship leader was too large to recover.

“The gaps are too big! We keep doing our job as best as we can, we’ll see,” said Ogier.

”Without service in Greece it is a big challenge, so far we are happy and we will try to finish the day.”

Tanak successfully managed to pass through what he declared “the roughest” test of the rally to date, to maintain fourth overall, but behind there was drama for fifth-placed Gregor Munster.

The M-Sport-Ford driver went off the road with his Puma becoming stuck in a ditch at the side of the road. Munster’s exit handed fifth to WRC2 class leader Sami Pajari ahead of Robert Virves.

The crews will tackle two more stages this afternoon before a super special stage near Athens tonight.