The Greek Round of the World Rally Championship lived up to its punishing reputation as different leaders encountered mechanical retirements at different times.
The rally started on Thursday with a short Super Special Stage on the streets of Athens. Championship leader Kalle Rovanpera would start as he meant to go with a stage win in the Toyota GR Yaris, just 0.3 seconds in front of Esapekka Lappi in the Hyundai i20N. Elfyn Evans, Rovanpera’s main challenger in the championship, took a cautious approach to the stage and would end up way down the order in 12th overall, behind the WRC2 Skodas of Andreas Mikkelsen and Nikolay Gryazin.
Due to his poor starting position on the gravel stages on day 2, Rovanpera would lose time to his rivals and fell to 4th overall by the end of the second stage. Thierry Neuville was the early beneficiary, leapfrogging Rovanpera and teammate Lappi to end Friday on top. On his return to the WRC, Ogier lay in second at the end of the day, just 2.8 seconds behind the Hyundai while Rovanpera had fought back to 3rd. Evans was left still chasing Rovanpera in 4th, while Ford had a torrid time as Pierre-Louis Loubet and Ott Tanak encountered mechanical problems, ending Loubet’s day and forcing Tanak to take penalties, taking him out of the podium battle. In the WRC2 class, Skoda also had a terrible second day as championship leader Andreas Mikkelsen suffered a remarkable 3 punctures and Oliver Solberg dropped out of the rally.
Day 3 would be the most dramatic, as Ogier and Neuville battled it out for the lead. Ogier would take the rally lead on the first stage of the day, before a rare mistake gifted it back to Neuville. But stage 10 would spell disaster for Neuville as he hit a hole, breaking his steering and forcing him to stop. This gifted Ogier the lead until the final stage of the day, where he too encountered suspension problems. He managed to limp to the end of the stage with a broken left-rear suspension, but this took him out of contention for the podium as well. Rovanpera would therefore end the day on top with a lead of over 2 minutes from Dani Sordo, with Evans completing the top 3. Takamoto Katsuta and Lappi would also encounter problems on the day, with Katsuta forced to change a wheel and Lappi having to deal with handbrake, transmission and alternator issues.
The first stage of the final day would see Rovanpera drop 31.2 seconds from stage winner Evans, as the Finn took the stage carefully having seen what had happened to Neuville and Ogier. With the stage win, Evans moved ahead of Sordo to take second, where he would stay until the end of the rally. Rovanpera won the Power Stage to take an extra 5 points on top of his third win of the season to extend his points lead to 33 points over Evans with 3 rounds to go. Tanak recovered from his Friday Misery to take 4th in the leading Ford Puma, with Lappi rounding out the top 5 in a dramatic rally.
Andreas Mikkelsen was the star of the show in WRC2, as he took all 6 stage wins in class on Saturday before overturning a 12 second deficit to Gus Greensmith on the Sunday. Friday’s punctures seemed to motivate the Norweigan, who flipped a 2 minute deficit at the end of day 2 to win by 10 seconds. The Skoda pair would be joined by the Citroen C3 of Yohan Rossel on the podium. The result meant that Mikkelsen extended his WRC2 championship lead to 16 points from Russel, with Greensmith a further 12 behind.
Meanwhile, William Creighton overcame radiator damage on Friday to secure the Junior WRC title, amassing enough stage wins and reclaiming enough positions to hang on to his lead.
An agonising weekend for Neuville drops him 66 points behind Rovanpera and 33 behind Evans with 3 rounds to go. With 3 rounds to go and a total of 90 points on offer, Tanak is also mathematically in the hunt, but with 81 points to make up it looks unlikely that the Estonian will get his second title this year. Will it go to Rovanpera, or can Neuville or Evans make up the points difference and get their first title?
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