Sebastian Ogier and Vincent Landais took Rally Greece by the scruff of the neck and opened up a 5.6 second lead in the morning loop of stages, before enjoying an 11.7 second lead after stage four. It went south for the eight time champion in stage five, losing tons of time with a broken turbo. He ended the day in fourth, 45.2 seconds off the lead.
The opening day was a brutal one for Toyota Gazoo Racing. Elfyn Evans stopped in the first stage to change a wheel and was seen working on his car in the open section heading to stage two. In the next stage, he lost turbo boost and ended the day in 19th place, 9 min 55.5 off the lead!
Takamoto Katsuta won stage two and held second overall until the next stage when he retired after crashing out. Maybe TGR should install an in-car entertainment system, and load it with Taylor Swift’s song “You need to calm down.”
Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja took over at the head of the timesheets after Ogier’s issues, followed by Dani Sordo in the third Hyundai with title leader Thierry Neuville in third. The Belgian, as he has all year, opened the road so to be third overall – albeit it 46.6 seconds behind Tänak- and claim the honours in stage six, wasn’t too bad,
Adrien Fourmaux was a sensational second overall in his M-Sport Ford Puma but retired in stage four after damaging the Puma’s steering after a heavy landing following a jump.
Gregoire Munster held fifth, and excellent position for the Luxembourger in the second M-Sport Ford Puma.
In WRC2, Yohan Rossel had a 45 second lead over Sami Pajari after stage five, but by the time the clocks stopped after stage six, he was in sixth overall, following a puncture. Robert Virves leads Pajari by 1.5 seconds.
