Monday was Friday. Tuesday and Wednesday? The weekend. Welcome to the World Rally Championship week. It’s recce time in Greece.
It’s unusual to run reconnaissance over three days, but that’s the nature of the route for the Acropolis Rally. It’s even rarer these days for the crews to stay in two different hotels in two nights. If anywhere has the ability to remind us regularly how good things were in days gone by, it’s Greece.
Day one proper starts in Loutraki at the side of the Corinth Canal while it ends some way up country in Lamia. Logistically, it might cause the odd headache, but we should applaud and encourage WRC rounds to think differently.
And the Olympic Stadium on Thursday night will definitely be different.
Much as the crews will relish the atmosphere of 60,000 fans cheering them on, it’s the next three days that really count.
Returning to the service park at the end of the second day of recce, opinions varied greatly on how rough the roads were and who would be in the best place on Friday. Recent rain has left some of the stages slippery and recce cars a touch muddier than might have been expected.
Championship leader Kalle Rovanperä starts first on the road on day one proper. He thinks that’s bad. And he thinks the roads – in places – are rougher than last year.
“The road condition is fine, except for some parts which are rougher than last year,” Rovanperä said. “The surface is not so loose, but in some sections, there are a lot of stones. On Friday it will be bad for us with due to the starting order.”
Second in the championship and winner of the last two WRC rounds Ott Tänak isn’t so sure.
Hyundai’s talisman offered: “The stages are in a good condition. It’s quite OK. Still muddy in some places, but nothing dramatic. They look nice.”
Anybody on the fence? Step forward Thierry Neuville.
“It is a good mix of smooth and rough parts, with fast or narrow and twisty sections,” he said. “It’s a little bit of everything.
“I think it will be dry. I hope on the first day we’ll have a good road position. Then we’ll see what will happen. The road position is more important for the Friday stages.”
Esapekka Lappi says muddy’s not funny. The Finn’s not a fan of rain on this rally.
“It’s not so rough as I expected,” he said. “The stages are in better condition than eight years ago.
“The surface is damp, not dry. I hope it will be dry during the rally because mud is not so funny! It should be no more rain, but in places, with no sun under the trees, you don’t know if it will get dry or not.
“You need a little bit of luck not to break something or have a puncture.”
Last word? It’s got to go to the master himself really. Sébastien Loeb returns to Greece for the first time in a decade. What did the M-Sport Ford World Rally Team rockstar think of the route, roads and recce?
“It’s not that easy,” he said. “For me there are a lot of new stages. It’s a hard work to make the notes and create something precise. But still, the stages are very nice and interesting – not so rough as in the past.”
And that’s all you need to know.
So, having looked at these words, now take a look at these lovely pictures from recce week in and around central Greece.
