Thierry Neuville takes 4.1-second lead into Sunday as he repelled Sébastien Ogier’s advances at Acropolis Rally Greece.
Neuville has led the eighth round of this year’s World Rally Championship since SS4 on Friday, with Ogier shadowing him after Hyundai team-mate Adrien Fourmaux dropped back with a puncture.
Neuville started Saturday with a 9.7s advantage, but across the morning’s four stages, the reigning world champion stole six seconds from his rival to trail by 3.7s.
With two stages remaining in the afternoon, Ogier went against the grain by carrying just one spare Hankook in his Toyota’s trunk, while every other Rally1 driver chose two.
Ogier’s decision didn’t unlock the expected speed advantage though, as Neuville instead set the pace on SS12 by a commanding 7.1s to extend his lead to 10.8s.
“That’s good,” he grinned. “I had a great stage. The car was working amazing, honestly. It was super quick and I was really enjoying it. Nothing is over, but we carry on.”
Ogier arrived at the stop control not long after Fourmaux, who had stopped to change a puncture to therefore fall from third to sixth, but insisted he hadn’t lost any time in his compatriot’s dust.
“It didn’t cost me much, it just disturbed some corners – it was not too bad,” said Ogier.
The script was flipped on Menalo Mt 2 however, as this time it was Ogier who made big gains. Neuville dropped 6.7s to his rival on SS13, reducing his lead to just 4.1s ahead of Sunday’s final four stages.
He damaged his Hyundai on one of the final corners of the day to cause a coolant leak, but Neuville insisted “all is OK”.
Championship leader Eflyn Evans was hunting down M-Sport Josh McErlean’s fourth place, closing to four seconds behind ahead of Saturday’s final stage.
DirtFish discovered McErlean was carrying a damper issue too, so appeared to be a sitting duck for Evans. But Evans was forced to stop and change a tire on the stage and therefore fell from fifth to seventh.
“It happens,” said Evans. “It came very unexpectedly, the deflation was very sudden so I was very close to crashing actually as I couldn’t stop for the next corner, but all OK.”
McErlean didn’t gain position however, as Fourmaux leapfrogged him into fourth by just 1s, with Takamoto Katsuta 43.6s up the road in third.
Sami Pajari set his sights on Dani Sordo on Saturday, beginning the afternoon 16.9s adrift of what was then seventh place. Sordo pulled another 3.7s clear of Pajari after SS12, but it was unlucky SS13 for the Spaniard who picked up a front-right puncture on the day’s final stage.
Pajari therefore moved up to sixth, 39.5s ahead of Sordo with team-mate Evans filtering in 4.8s behind Pajari.
“It’s not our rally,” Sordo rued.
Mãrtiņš Sesks lost 3m10s before the afternoon even began, as he left service 19 minutes late because “the car wouldn’t start”.
He therefore ended the day in 11th behind the leading WRC2 runners Andreas Mikkelsen and Robert Virves.
Jon Armstrong and Oliver Solberg both got to the end of the day unscathed after their retirements on Friday, although Armstrong suffered a scare at the final stop control as the rear-left of his Ford Puma Rally1 briefly caught fire.
