Thierry Neuville successfully navigated through another brutal day at the Acropolis Rally to lead the World Rally Championship event into the final day.
The championship leader survived six rough gravel stages, without a service, to lead Hyundai team-mate Dani Sordo by 54.9s, provisionally claiming the maximum 18 Saturday points.
Sordo took two points away from Neuville’s title rival Toyota’s Sebastian Ogier, who headed back to the service park in third [+1m19.9s], with 13 points, having continued his recovery from a turbo issue that cost him the lead on Friday night.
Neuville started the day in third position but inherited the lead, becoming the fourth leader of the rally, after team-mates Ott Tanak and Sordo suffered punctures.
Overnight leader Tanak witnessed his victory hopes vanish after stopping twice on the opening test of the day (stage seven, Rengini, 28.67km, to change punctured rear and front right tyres.
Losing more than four minutes pushed the 2019 world champion to fourth, where he remained at the end of the afternoon loop, 3m20.5s adrift.
Sordo assumed the rally lead following Tanak’s tyre woes but his time in the lead was short-lived. The Spaniard hit a rock on stage nine that punctured his right rear tyre which then delaminated and caused damage to the car en route to the stage end.
Thierry Neuville, Martijn Wydaeghe, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1
Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images
M-Sport’s Gregoire Munster held fifth before running into a ditch on stage nine, which handed the position to WRC2 class leader Sami Pajari [+5m07.3s], with Robert Virves in sixth [+5m35.1s].
The day’s remaining stages were not without drama as Takamoto Katsuta, returning from his Friday exit, spun and stalled his GR Yaris in stage 10 (Loutraki, 12.90km).
Tanak came through the technical test littered with loose rocks with the fastest time, 2.4s faster than Ogier, while a cautious Neuville was 0.2s further back.
Sordo was fourth quickest with a patched-up i20 N thanks to his mechanics at the midday tyre fitting zone, who attempted to prevent dust coming into the car through the hole caused by the delaminated tyre. The WRC veteran did however opt to wear goggles to help with the visibility.
The second pass through the rutted Aghii Theodori (stage 11) provided a couple of scares for Tanak and Elfyn Evans at the same hairpin on a sharp downhill section.
Evans clipped a rut which tipped his GR Yaris into a slow roll and was lucky spectators were on hand to push the car back on to its wheels. The incident was the latest drama for the Welshman, who had climbed from 30th to 13th after a puncture and turbo failure on Friday.
Evans pulled over to let Ogier through before reaching the stage end having dropped 5m07.1s. Toyota elected to retire the car to preserve the machinery for Sunday’s stages.
Tanak almost produced a carbon copy of Evans’ roll but somehow managed to save his i20 N from rolling as it teetered on two wheels. The moment likely cost him a stage win after trailing Ogier by 0.5s at the finish.
Neuville stuck to his plan not to take any unnecessary risks to complete the test 5.5s as his lead over Sordo extended to 52.6s.
The Hyundai driver ended the day in style by winning one of the most unusual spectator super special stages in WRC history that ended the day.
Neuville took the win by 0.4s from Ogier on the 1.97km test that utilised a closed section of a motorway and service station.
Three stages await the crews on Sunday to conclude the rally.