Sébastien Loeb continues to lead Acropolis Rally Greece for M-Sport but there was disaster for a disconsolate Craig Breen who punctured on SS4.
Breen had been lying fifth overall, 8.4 seconds off the lead after the first two gravel stages of Friday.
His pace looked strong on the second pass of Loutraki but it all slipped away, as Breen picked up a puncture and lost two minutes having to stop and change it.
Amid a season where very little has gone right, it was a bitter pill for Breen to swallow.
“I don’t know boss, honestly,” he said. “I seem to be getting it all at this point.”
Loutraki is the only repeat stage on Friday’s itinerary, giving Kalle Rovanperä a brief reprieve with a lessened road-sweeping effect. But the stage had deteriorated, with rocks poking through the surface – particularly towards the end.
Rovanperä commented that there was “a bit more of a clean line, so that’s better” but the championship leader’s difficult Friday didn’t get any better on SS4 as he was still only ninth fastest – languishing in the same position overall.
Team-mate Esapekka Lappi had no such concerns though, as he shared the fastest time on the stage with rally leader Loeb.
That was enough to vault Lappi up from sixth to fourth place.
“It felt that I overheated the tires, so the end was very slippery, maybe a few times I was too wide and off the line but otherwise very clean run,” Lappi remarked.
Thierry Neuville lost ground to Loeb – 3.7s to be precise – to slip to 6.4s behind overall in second place.
“I had very bad tires on the front for this stage and I start to understeer towards the end,” he said, mimicking Lappi’s comments.
“I thought it would be good to save some tires for the next stage but still we are faster than Elfyn, so maybe the strategy worked well.”
Pierre-Louis Loubet remains in third overall but couldn’t repeat his top-three stage performances of the morning, going fifth fastest on SS4.
Loubet is 0.9s ahead of Lappi but was somewhat distracted at the finish control: “I have to go, I have no brakes,” said Loubet after staring at the stage times.
Ott Tänak may have lost position to Lappi but he still produced a sterling effort given he was driving a wounded Hyundai.
“Before the stage on the road section we lost the hybrid,” he revealed, “it’s affecting quite a bit our driveability.”
Dani Sordo moved past Elfyn Evans into sixth position, lying three tenths ahead overall with a stage time that was 1.9s faster.
Rovanperä is 7.5s behind his team-mate Evans but was overtaken by M-Sport’s Gus Greensmith who picked up his pace significantly on SS4.
Greensmith is 1.4s ahead of the championship leader overall after setting the fourth fastest stage time – despite a lack of stopping power.
“I had no brakes all the way down the hill, no bite when I first touched the brakes,” said Greensmith, “so it’s hard to have some good confidence coming down there.”
Takamoto Katsuta looks like a lost soul at the moment, struggling for any pace or rhythm. And things got worse on SS4 when he overshot a hairpin and fell to over a minute off the rally leader Loeb.
He’s a distant 49s behind Rovanperä.
