Neuville and Ogier set for Acropolis showdown
The battle at the top of the Acropolis Rally is nothing short of beautiful. Thierry Neuville, piloting his Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team machine, heads into Sunday with a lead of 9.7sec over the legend Sebastien Ogier. It has been a constant game of cat and mouse across the Peloponnese, with Neuville’s advantage at one point stretching to 10.8sec before Ogier clawed it back with a fastest time on the final Menalo Mt test.
Neuville did reach the end of the day with front-left damage and a small fluid leak on his i20 N Rally1, but he remains unshaken. "It's not a problem," he insisted. On the other side, Ogier has been playing a clever game. By carrying only one spare tire, he adopted a bold strategy that kept him in the fight, though he admitted he was not willing to take every single risk on these treacherous roads.
The drama behind the leaders was equally intense. Takamoto Katsuta has climbed into third for Toyota, largely by managing the rough, muddy, and rock-strewn conditions with caution. Meanwhile, Adrien Fourmaux fought back to take fourth for Hyundai after a wheel-change drama on the Ghymno stage dropped him briefly, only to snatch the position back by a mere 1.0sec from Josh McErlean. It is a brutal event, and as Katsuta noted, "It’s really difficult and easy to get a puncture. Normally you know when you get it, but in here you just don’t know."
