It’s being touted as a three-way tussle.
Yohan Rossel, Oliver Solberg and Gus Greensmith have all won rallies in WRC2 this season – two in the case of Rossel and Solberg – and have been firmly in the fight for the championship before.
This season is about getting the job done.
Only one of them can of course, but what if none of them did? What if we told you there was a potential fourth contender – staying low-key and biding his time but absolutely not to be ignored.
Nikolay Gryazin has competed in four events so far this season, yet his name is all the way down in 16th on the championship table. But Gryazin has only nominated one rally to score points on so far, with this week’s Acropolis Rally Greece continuing that trend.
So while his rivals are all building their campaigns (and potentially losing points to each other), Gryazin has gone for the opposite approach: waiting to see what everyone does, and then (hopefully in his case) racking up the numbers when his rivals can no longer reply.
Yohan Rossel
67pts
2 wins | 4 starts
Rossel appears to be sitting the prettiest, but in WRC2 it’s never so straightforward.
The Citroën driver has the most points on the board, but he’s also had the most opportunity. Greece will be his fifth start (from a possible seven) of the season – one up on Solberg and two on Greensmith.
And after missing a chance to score any points on his last event in Sardinia, the pressure is on the Frenchman to make better use of the Acropolis – particularly with two of his big rivals also out to play.
This week will be crucial for his championship campaign.
Oliver Solberg
60pts
2 wins | 3 starts
The fastest car and driver combination? Certainly, if you ask Gus Greensmith.
And the statistics back it up: the Swede shares the season’s most stage wins with Rossel, but has started one fewer event. He’s led the most stages, and came out on top the only time he, Rossel and Greensmith have all competed together this year (Portugal).
When everything is working as it should, Solberg appears to have an edge over the rest. The Acropolis is a massive opportunity for him to flex his authority and deny his big rivals a victory that would be key for their campaigns.
Gus Greensmith
40pts
1 win | 2 starts
For the third year in a row Greensmith opened his WRC2 campaign with a win, and third was a good points score in Portugal albeit tinged with the frustration of coming so close to beating Rossel to second.
The Briton may have concerns about the ultimate speed of his Fabia relative to Solberg’s Yaris, but this week that may be less of a factor on stages as rock-strewn as the Acropolis.
For the same reasons as both Rossel and Solberg this is an important week for the newly-wed, but with no entry into Estonia afterwards, the lay of the land after round eight will really paint the picture for Greensmith as by then, both Solberg and Rossel will have started five rounds each.
Nikolay Gryazin
15pts
1 podium | 1 start
That will be key for Gryazin too, who will take on Solberg in Estonia for just his second points-scoring event after the Canaries.
Afterwards, he’ll be left with six rounds (Finland, Paraguay, Chile, Central Europe, Japan and Saudi Arabia) for which he can nominate four to score points on.
It’s a tactic first truly explored by Kajetan Kajetanowicz in 2022: travelling to the flyaways and scoring points where there are less rivals to race.
But beating Solberg in Estonia will be vital for any championship quest – particularly if Solberg scores maximum points in Greece and is chasing a fourth WRC2 win next month.
However the mystique of his challenge makes Gryazin an undeniable contender just now. So while all the attention this week will naturally be on Rossel, Solberg and Greensmith’s battle, the calculated nature of a WRC2 championship campaign means the potential exists for a driver actively choosing not to race them to become the one that beats them.
