Sebastien Loeb began to assert his authority over the 2012 Acropolis Rally through the first half of the opening full day in Greece.
Ford’s Jari-Matti Latvala had held the advantage over his Citroen rival during the early part of the morning, with the Finn showing no ill effects from his recent injury as he took two narrow stage wins and managed to pull slightly clear of Loeb, leading by 3.3 seconds after stage three.
Then things started to go awry for Latvala. First a minor off-road excursion in a slippery braking area on stage four cost him a handful of seconds and gave Loeb the rally lead, then on the two stages after remote service Latvala found his set-up was not to his liking, struggling at times with tyres not warming up on the harder parts of the surface. By the time the cars returned to service, the gap between Loeb and Latvala was up to 10.1s.
It was also an up-and-down morning for Latvala’s team-mate Petter Solberg. Initially the Norwegian struggled with handling issues on right-hand bends, but when the road became more muddy on stage four, he flew to a dominant stage win and found himself up to third and within four seconds of the rally lead.
Solberg started slipping back again after service, though, and then an impact with a rock after a crest on the sixth stage kicked the Ford Fiesta RS WRC into the air and left Solberg concerned about potential damage to the propshaft or driveshaft. He also dropped behind Mikko Hirvonen and into fourth place.
Evgeny Novikov (M-Sport Ford) is resisting Adapta Ford’s Mads Ostberg for fifth, with the latter unhappy with his driving so far today.
Choosing two soft tyres for stage six was a good move for Thierry Neuville, as it took him to the second-fastest time and brought him onto Ott Tanak’s tail in the young guns’ battle for seventh position.
Martin Prokop in ninth, with Volkswagen’s Sebastien Ogier doing more giant-killing in his Super 2000 Skoda Fabia to hold 10th overall.
Production Car points leader Benito Guerra damaged his car this morning, leaving Valeriy Gorban with a half-minute lead over Nicolas Fuchs in the class battle.
In the WRC Academy, Elfyn Evans has established a 26.4s advantage over Alastair Fisher, with Pontus Tidemand in third.