Andreas Mikkelsen’s bid to retain his World Rally Championship-2 title is in jeopardy after he crashed on the very first stage of Acropolis Rally Greece.
Mikkelsen realistically needed to win this weekend to win the title. Competitors carry the best six of their seven scores towards their final championship tally, and Greece is Mikkelsen’s final rally.
But more pertinently, he is forced to carry one zero-point score towards his final total after two engine-related retirements in both Portugal and Sardinia earlier in the season.
The last thing the former Volkswagen and Hyundai driver needed then was to crash his Škoda within 10 seconds of the start of the opening 1.2-mile superspecial in the Olympic Stadium in Athens.
Mikkelsen took way too much air over a jump and careered into the concrete barrier on the outside of the corner, destroying his front-left wheel.
Mikkelsen crabbed round part of the stage with the wheel pointing 45 degrees inwards towards the wheel arch, but elected to pull off after one lap – with Yohan Rossel right behind him – without completing his mandatory two laps.
He will earn himself a 10-minute penalty for retiring on the stage.
There is no official service until the end of Friday but Mikkelsen’s Toksport team is able to fix the Fabia Rally2 evo, so long as it can get the car to the first time control on Friday in time. Retiring from stage one allows Mikkelsen’s team to bring the stricken Fabia back to service for repairs.
The service park in Lamia is 130 miles north of the Olympic Stadium. All cars will be taken back on a transporter.
Plenty of the Rally1 drivers, who were all onto the stage after Mikkelsen, saw his mistake and admitted to taking a bit more caution on the stage as a result.
But apparently not Esapekka Lappi, who made the exact same mistake but managed to get away with it, tapping the barrier with the rear of his Toyota GR Yaris Rally1.
“I think it’s OK, I think it’s only cosmetic,” said Lappi, the left-rear wheel of his Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 sporting concrete dust from the impact.
“Fully locked the wheels on the braking and couldn’t restart the engine, but that’s how it is.”
There were no such problems for Thierry Neuville though, who leads the rally overnight after pipping fellow Hyundai driver (albeit in an i20 Rally2 rather than Rally1) Teemu Suninen by a single tenth of a second.
Neuville enjoyed his run through the packed stadium: “It’s like it should always be, such crowds and the atmosphere,” he said.
“Really congratulations to the organizers as well to put it in place for us and all the spectators who have come today so that’s great.
“It shows again an example that it’s possible to still bring the crowds to the WRC and I think the Promoter should take a look at it, I’m sure we can do better for the upcoming events as well.”
Neuville beat Elfyn Evans in his heat – who was 2.8 seconds slower – to lie outside the overall top 10.
Hyundai managed to actually cement a 1-2-3-4 with Dani Sordo and Ott Tänak third and fourth fastest respectively.
Tänak got the better of points leader Kalle Rovanperä in his heat by 0.4s, who described the stage as “not the most enjoyable but one of the coolest stages I’ve done. When you drive in front of a crowd like this then these kinds of stages are worth it.”
Rally2 cars showed their prowess on narrow and twisty superspecials yet again, after famously dominating the Porto superspecial on Rally Portugal earlier this year.
Emil Lindholm, Mikkelsen’s team-mate at Toksport, slotted into fifth place ahead of Gaurav Gill in another Fabia. Both bested Sébastien Loeb, who settled for seventh overall after beating Lappi in his heat.
Despite his skirmish with the barriers, Lappi’s time was relatively competitive among the Rally1 cars – just 0.3s down on eighth-placed Rovanperä.
Georg Linnamäe put a fourth Rally2 car in the top 10, slotting in between the Toyota team-mates in ninth with his Volkswagen Polo GTI R5.
Craig Breen and Pierre-Louis Loubet both won their heats – seeing off Takamoto Katsuta and Jourdan Serderidis respectively – to lie 11th and 13th, with Evans just one-tenth off Loubet in 15th.
Gus Greensmith, who was beaten by Sordo in their duel, is another tenth behind Evans with Katsuta another 0.6s adrift.
