Every front-running World Rally Championship driver on Acropolis Rally Greece has had their times for stage nine changed retroactively, after an issue with the timing system was discovered.
The timing system clock at the startline of Aghii Theodori was found to have lost GPS synchronisation before Takamoto Katsuta led the field away, an issue that wasn’t remedied until the last car started the first pass of the test.
This had a minor knock-on effect on how stage times were recorded, as explained in a decision by the stewards of the event.
“Some crews suffered disadvantages depending on whether the crews were relayed on a timing system clock or a GPS clock,” read the stewards’ statement.
“On the grounds of Articles 1.1.1, 11.9.2.a and 11.9.3.j of the 2024 FIA International Sporting Code, the Stewards determined to amend the times using the time recorded by the Start Line photocell adding 0.5 seconds as a simulation of reaction time.”
The adjustments involved are fairly small. Sébsatien Ogier’s time remains identical, subject to further review, as do the SS9 times of Junior WRC title rivals Romet Jürgenson and Norbert Maior. The remaining 37 drivers all had their times changed.
Ott Tänak was one of the main beneficiaries, with his stage time revised down from 18m20.3s to 18m18s, an improvement of 2.3s. But with gaps throughout the field now fairly spread out, the only leaderboard change it has caused is promoting Roberto Blach’s Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 past Jürgenson to 20th overall.
