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The fight for honours on the Acropolis Rally, round six of the WRC, remains finely balanced with Sebastien Loeb holding a narrow margin of 10.2s following a day of high drama in Greece.
From WRC.com
Overnight leader Loeb, in a Citroen DS3 WRC, had come under intense pressure from factory Ford pilot Jari-Matti Latvala, who narrowed the French driver's lead to one second only to suffer a slow puncture while 2.2s behind on stage 14. With Latvala and co-driver Miikka Anttila stopping to change the damaged wheel, Loeb and navigator Daniel Elena were left seemingly in the clear.
However, a determined effort from Latvala's Ford teammate Petter Solberg in increasingly slippery conditions caused by sporadic rain showers, means a fourth win of the season for Loeb is far from guaranteed heading into Sunday's five stages.
Behind Solberg, who could have been closer to Loeb had he not overshot a junction in the rain on stage 16, Mikko Hirvonen holds a distant third place in the second factory Citroen with Latvala down in fourth having lost further ground by completing three stages with only three brakes as a result of the damage caused by his puncture.
Mads Ostberg has fought back up to fifth in his Adapta Fiesta with Martin Prokop sixth. Both drivers benefited when a water pump failure led to Evgeny Novikov's exit on Saturday morning.
Thierry Neuville is seventh with Sebastien Ogier eighth despite tackling stage 15 without the aid of powersteering on his Volkswagen Motorsport Skoda Fabia Super 2000. Yazeed Al-Rajhi is a strong ninth in his Fiesta RRC.
Acropolis rally - Classification after day 2:
1. Loeb-Elena (Citroen DS3 Wrc) in 3h56min13.0s
2. P. Solberg-Patterson (Citroen DS3 Wrc) + 10.2s
3. Hirvonen-Lehtinen (Ford Fiesta RS Wrc) + 1min55.5s
4. Latvala-Anttila (Ford Fiesta RS Wrc) + 4min44.6s
5. Ostberg-Andersson (Ford Fiesta RS Wrc) + 7min39.7s
6. Prokop-Hruza (Ford Fiesta RS Wrc) + 8min08.6s
7. Neuville-Gilsoul (Citroen DS3 Wrc) + 10min39.4s
8. Ogier-Ingrassia (Citroen DS3 Wrc) + 12min17.9s
etc.
From WRC.com
Overnight leader Loeb, in a Citroen DS3 WRC, had come under intense pressure from factory Ford pilot Jari-Matti Latvala, who narrowed the French driver's lead to one second only to suffer a slow puncture while 2.2s behind on stage 14. With Latvala and co-driver Miikka Anttila stopping to change the damaged wheel, Loeb and navigator Daniel Elena were left seemingly in the clear.
However, a determined effort from Latvala's Ford teammate Petter Solberg in increasingly slippery conditions caused by sporadic rain showers, means a fourth win of the season for Loeb is far from guaranteed heading into Sunday's five stages.
Behind Solberg, who could have been closer to Loeb had he not overshot a junction in the rain on stage 16, Mikko Hirvonen holds a distant third place in the second factory Citroen with Latvala down in fourth having lost further ground by completing three stages with only three brakes as a result of the damage caused by his puncture.
Mads Ostberg has fought back up to fifth in his Adapta Fiesta with Martin Prokop sixth. Both drivers benefited when a water pump failure led to Evgeny Novikov's exit on Saturday morning.
Thierry Neuville is seventh with Sebastien Ogier eighth despite tackling stage 15 without the aid of powersteering on his Volkswagen Motorsport Skoda Fabia Super 2000. Yazeed Al-Rajhi is a strong ninth in his Fiesta RRC.
Acropolis rally - Classification after day 2:
1. Loeb-Elena (Citroen DS3 Wrc) in 3h56min13.0s
2. P. Solberg-Patterson (Citroen DS3 Wrc) + 10.2s
3. Hirvonen-Lehtinen (Ford Fiesta RS Wrc) + 1min55.5s
4. Latvala-Anttila (Ford Fiesta RS Wrc) + 4min44.6s
5. Ostberg-Andersson (Ford Fiesta RS Wrc) + 7min39.7s
6. Prokop-Hruza (Ford Fiesta RS Wrc) + 8min08.6s
7. Neuville-Gilsoul (Citroen DS3 Wrc) + 10min39.4s
8. Ogier-Ingrassia (Citroen DS3 Wrc) + 12min17.9s
etc.