Rapid Neuville inherits Acropolis Rally lead as Loeb retires
At the conclusion of the Saturday leg – which comprised another six gruelling stages that claimed a number of Rally1 scalps – Neuville is comfortably ahead of the second Hyundai i20 N Rally1 of Ott Tanak.
“It has been a great day for us. A bit of a hard one this afternoon with some trouble with the car, but we survived and we are here now. We had a warning for battery voltage, but it seems okay now,” said Neuville, who leads by 27.9 seconds. “My tyres weren’t so good on the last few stages and I was just trying to drive clean to avoid punctures.”
The day started with Loeb catching everyone napping; he blitzed ‘Pyrgos’ to extend his overnight lead to 19 seconds from Neuville as Loubet slipped to third after choosing a cautious approach.
Loeb’s euphoria was interrupted when his Puma Rally1 developed an alternator problem soon after the finish. Repairs carried out at the roadside resulted in the three-time event winner going over the time limit. Even if the nine-time World Champion’s efforts had been successful, he probably would not have travelled much further as it later transpired a bearing on the alternator had broken.
The option of restarting on Sunday as per Super Rally rules was discussed with the Frenchman given the potential for him to collect some useful Power Stage points – but with no Championship title on the line this season, he politely declined. “Take the points to who?” was his response to the idea when mooted by journalists back at service.
M-Sport Ford’s bad run of form continued into the next stage as third became seventh for Loubet after he punctured the front-left tyre and lost over a minute. He continued on his way, albeit at a crawl, and the end result was clear from the damaged bodywork.
Back at the front and two spares in his boot should – as Neuville pointed out – have proved “a handicap”, but it didn’t. He ended the morning loop half-a-minute clear of Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Esapekka Lappi despite the rear of his Korean supermini feeling detached from the rest of it on a number of occasions.
Neuville’s advantage hovered in and around the 30 second mark for the three afternoon stages, during which Lappi lost touch with the Belgian late on. He came to a stop on the penultimate run for the best part of three minutes with a suspected fuel-related issue and subsequently had to call it a day.
That left Tanak – winner of the last two World Rally Championship events – to give chase. Gremlins with his car’s differential in the morning was causing excessive tyre wear and his reluctance to stop and participate in stage end interviews as the day wore on suggested his mechanics still had not fully cured all of the problems.
With only three stages to negotiate on Sunday, and with title rival Kalle Rovanpera seemingly out of contention to bag a big points haul at round 11 after bending his GR Yaris Rally1’s rear suspension, the objective for 2019 champion Tanak will be to get his car on the podium.
Of a similar mindset will be Dani Sordo. Provisionally, the Alzenau-based squad lock out the top three places – a scenario unthinkable to many considering the dominance of the two M-Sport Ford cars on Friday.
The Spaniard was not immune to trouble, however, and had a scare on the antepenultimate stage when, like Neuville, a ’14-volt battery low’ alarm flashed up on the dashboard. “It was difficult,” he said. “We need to protect the position of the two cars in front in case something happens.”
After being lost for answers on Friday, Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Elfyn Evans appeared to find some for Saturday as a steady approach, coupled with a more favourable road position, elevated him from eighth to fourth – a minute and 40 seconds up on Loubet. The gap to him and Sordo provisionally stands at 7.1 seconds.
Another driver on a charge is M-Sport Ford’s Craig Breen; eleventh at the start of Saturday, he rose to sixth, a minute in arrears of Loubet but 54 seconds to the good over Toyota Junior driver Takamoto Katsuta. The last Rally1 runner in eighth is Rovanpera.
