Thierry Neuville’s bid for Acropolis Rally Greece unravelled on the penultimate stage as he picked up two punctures.
Neuville led Ogier by 4.1 seconds ahead of Sunday’s final four stages, but immediately lost the lead on the day’s opening test. Incredibly, the two most recent world champions then set exactly the same time on SS15 to keep the gap consistent at 1.3 seconds.
But Neuville’s hopes of a second victory of the season evaporated on SS16 as his rear-right tire let go, costing him 53.5s and dropping him 54.8s behind Ogier. His rear-left tire then punctured towards the end of the stage to rub insult to injury.
Ogier was 1.8s ahead of Neuville 60% of the way through the penultimate stage anyway, but now Neuville is reliant on trouble for Ogier if he’s to win the event on the powerstage.
“Very unlucky,” said Neuville. “I don’t know what happened. In the end we had two rear punctures to finish the stage. What can we say? It would have been nicer to fight to the end against Sébastien but that’s it.
“Obviously we are disappointed now and the team would have deserved that victory here, we were on pace. I don’t know what to say. Now we need to have a clever run through and bring it home.”
Learning Neuville’s news, Ogier said: “In there it can always happen. We have to finish the job, it’s still a tough one to go.”
There was a late scare for M-Sport driver Josh McErlean too, as he outbraked himself into a right-hander and briefly got his Puma stuck on the lip of the road.
He lost over 48s to fifth-placed Sami Pajari behind him, meaning he has just 14.1s in hand ahead of the powerstage.
Pajari had started the penultimate stage 0.9s behind Adrien Fourmaux, but ended it 0.1s ahead. Fourmaux however said he was saving tires for the powerstage, which is worth up to five extra championship points.
