Takamoto Katsuta was fastest out of the blocks on Acropolis Rally Greece, topping the shakedown stage where the majority of drivers were impacted by the amount of dust on the roads.
On the first pass several drivers complained they were slowing or even came to a complete stop due to how compromised visibility was with each car passing through.
Ott Tänak, second-fastest on shakedown, pondered at the end of his first run: “Already the shakedown is extremely tricky with the dust. If it’s so bad in the open, what can it be in the forest?”
It was a similar story for Dani Sordo, making his first WRC appearance for Hyundai since Rally Italy Sardinia in early June.
“In one of the corners I almost stopped from the dust,” he said. His second attempt was 1.3s slower than Katsura’s benchmark.
As first car on the road, championship leader Neuville faces the prospect of road sweeping, which was pronounced on the first run of shakedown. Yohan Rossel in a Citroën C3 Rally2 was fourth quickest, one second off the pace, on the first runs, though eventually fell to ninth as the Rally1 cars went for second attempts.
“The risk of punctures is super high so let’s see what we can make out of the weekend,” said Neuville, who was two seconds off Katsuta’s pace. “Our approach is to have a decent run, try too manage our speed, protect the car and cross our fingers for [avoiding] the punctures.”
M-Sport duo Adrien Fourmaux and Grégoire Munster were fifth and sixth fastest, 2.9s apart from one another. They were followed by the top WRC2 runners, as Toyota duo Sébastien Ogier and Elfyn Evans opted to undertake only a single timed run and ended 12th and 14th fastest respectively.
Usually two runs of shakedown are mandatory for Rally1 runners but, due to the roughness of the roads, this has been revised down to just a single pass for the Acropolis.
Toyota’s leading contenders also suffered with the dust as much as their rivals: “Quite a lot of dust, I had to slow down in a few places. Not ideal,” said Evans after his one and only attempt.
Gus Greensmith led the way of the WRC2 runners, 1.7s up on Robert Virves in another Škoda Fabia RS Rally2. Rossel’s early effort was enough to keep him third among the Rally2 competitors, half a second up on Georg Linnamäe.
Linnamäe was one of the few WRC2 drivers to run shakedown twice; most made only a single pass to save their tires for use on the rally itself.
