Citroen set first and second fastest times on the first run through the Acropolis Rally’s Bauxites stage, as Sebastien Loeb pulled away in the lead and Mikko Hirvonen moved right back into the podium fight.
While the Ford World Rally Team chose to take two spare tyres in Jari-Matti Latvala and Petter Solberg’s cars, Citroen went for just one, and saw its drivers go five seconds quicker than their arch-rivals.
It was Hirvonen who claimed the stage win by 1.1s, closing his gap to third-placed Solberg to just 1.2s.
Loeb was able to extend his lead over Latvala to 5.7s, with the Finn feeling a set-up change may be necessary.
"I’m not happy with the car on the hard surface," said Latvala. "I feel like I can’t get the grip in the first part of the stages. We need to change the set-up to make the tyres warm up."
Evgeny Novikov remains fifth, though Mads Ostberg is gaining on him and is now just 5.9s behind, despite the Adapta man feeling he is not driving well.
"When I’m not confident with the car and I’m still pushing, I’m not clever. At the moment, I’m not very smart," said Ostberg.