SS1 of rally Acropolis, the 47km’s of Kineta-Pissa has turned the rally upside down with very few of the top Drivers making it through to the end without any problems.
Qatar M-Sport driver Evgeny Novikov has made it safely through to lead the rally by 20Seconds. “We are trying to push. I think the first so so we had to go…”
2nd place is Dani Sordo in the Citroen DS3, “After I hear about the other cars, I did not want to take any risk….”
VW’s Jari Matti Latvala made it through to 3rd 36 seconds off the lead. But VW’s recurring Hand Brake problem caused the Fin to run wide on several occasions. “It was slippy and very very…I had a handbrake problem…I was really suffering in places…” Neuville Made it to 4th 38.3 seconds behind.
Mikkelsen made it to 5th. “So much dust, I could hardly see. Made some mistakes in there. I stopped the car 3 times in the hairpins.”
Nasser Al-attiyah and Martin Prokop made it to 6th & 7th. With Al-Quassimi 8th
WRC2 Driver and ex-F1 Driver Robert Kubica is 9th overall and leads the WRC2 category.
Problems for Mads, Ogier and Hirvonen in SS1:
Mikko Hirvonen said, “Problem with the car in the first stage… Will try to find out what happens. Still in the race.” After investigation Hirvonen then went on to say “Steering problem confirmed. We try to fix it at the service. Close to 6 min lost in that stage. So disapointed”.
Mads Ostberg’s Wheel fall off in the stage but he managed to continue on. He could not speak at stage end.
Ogier stopped in the stage, the Team confirmed it as Technical issues. As ever its yet unclear what the techno issue is, but Sebastien Ogier is Out of the Rally.
Inside Rally 