Sébastien Ogier took the lead from Thierry Neuville on Sunday’s opening stage of Acropolis Rally Greece, leading the event by 1.3 seconds with two stages to go.
Neuville and Ogier have been locked in battle ever since Friday, with Neuville leading the way since SS4.
The 2024 world champion carried a 4.1s advantage over the 2025 world champion into Sunday’s final leg, but Ogier outpaced Neuville by 5.4s on the first stage of the day.
“That’s a surprise because I shrugged a lot,” said Ogier. “Very slippery, a big fight with the sand.”
Neuville at least knew where the time had gone.
“Honestly, I tried hard,” he said, “but I just can’t keep the rear in the line. Always when it’s sandy we struggle. It felt like the car was much softer than yesterday so it was bottoming out, but it’s still not over.”
Highlighting the quality of the battle, Hyundai’s Dani Sordo dothed his cap to his peers.
“Whatever happens, fair play to both because Séb and Thierry – they are both at an incredible level with different cars,” he said. “So both are real fighters. They didn’t have any problems yesterday, and at this speed they are doing, that’s not for everybody.”
Remarkably, Ogier and Neuville both set exactly the same time on SS15 to keep the lead gap at 1.3s ahead of the repeat pass later today.
“It’s close!” said Ogier. “I think it can be like this up to the end.”
Neuville added: “It was a good stage for us, but still fighting the rear. I’m fighting much more than the other days but at the same time we have to keep the rhythm, and let’s go.”
Takamoto Katsuta suffered an impact on SS14 but his TPMS wasn’t working, so he wasn’t sure if he had a puncture or not.
He didn’t, but without knowing that for sure he drove cautiously and gave up 20.3s to fourth-placed Adrien Fourmaux – reducing his overall advantage to 23.3s.
However, such time loss became academic on SS15 due to a front-left puncture for Fourmaux. That cost the Hyundai driver almost two minutes to Katsuta and he fell from fourth to fifth as a result – just 0.9s ahead of sixth-placed Sami Pajari
Josh McErlean moved up to fourth, 1m01.2s ahead of Fourmaux, and is therefore on for his best ever WRC result.
“It’s such a difficult thing to manage, because you want to go faster and you see the rocks, and there’s only so much a tire can take,” McErlean said. “We keep surviving – it looks like what we’re doing is OK at the moment.”
Fourmaux had led the Super Sunday standings after Aghii Theodori, but his Loutraki puncture dropped him out of contention. Ogier is the new leader, 5.4s ahead of Neuville with Pajari third, Katsuta fourth and Oliver Solberg – opting for soft tires – fifth.
