The first full day of action followed Thursday’s action which had shakedown in the morning and a super special stage in the evening which was won by Seb from Takamoto and Thierry. Elfyn was sixth in the stage. Onto the six stages then for the crews on Friday and of course Elfyn and Scott would open the road throughout the day.
First up then was SS2 Bauxites and at 22.97 kilometres it was a real challenge for them all. Adrien set the pace from his teammate Thierry, whilst Seb was third. The pace of the Belgians took them into the lead from their teammates Adrien and Alex pushing Seb and Vincent down to third overall. With such tricky road conditions whilst opening the road, Elfyn and Scott were tenth fastest and fell four positions to tenth overall. It was not a good start for Oliver who suffered a puncture losing almost a minute and a half and twenty-five positions as well.
Into SS3 Parnassos Mt another 22.28 kilometres stage and Adrien made it two in a row beating Thierry and Jon! It was a good stage for the M-Sport crews as Josh and Martins we also fourth and fifth fastest. There were some good changes in the overall leaderboard as Adrien now led from Thierry and Seb, Sami moved into fourth, Jon’s pace brought him up three positions into fifth overall.
Before the remote service came SS4 Stiri 1, yet another long stage at 24.18 kilometres and Seb set the pace this time from Thierry and Jon again. Adrien was only eleventh quickest after getting a puncture on the front right-hand side corner. The Frenchman fell to fourth position from the lead. All of this meant that Jon was now holding third position.
After the remote service it was to SS5 Elikon Mt that the crews headed to next and this stage will go down in history as the place where Jon and Shane took their first ever overall stage victory, beating Seb and Thierry. A simply brilliant drive! There was a stop for Finnish crew Sami and Marko who had a puncture to change and fell eight positions to fifteenth place.
It was back to SS6 Stiri 2 next and Thierry was fastest from Seb and Takamoto. Adrien was fourth and passed Jon for third overall as the Irishman suffered first a puncture and then a loss of power as well. After the highs of the previous stage, they fell down the leaderboard.
Onto the final stage of the day then with SS7 Thiva, yet another single run stage. Adrien set the pace from Seb and Thierry, and they filled the top three positions overall. We lost Oliver and Elliott as they spun off and their car was beached at the edge of the road. Championship leaders Elfyn and Scott ended the day in seventh overall after opening the road.
Let’s take a look at the top ten and hear from the drivers.
Classification after Day One
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Hyundai Motorsport
Thierry Neuville
“Today was a great day. The car was working very well, and I felt very confident on the stages. I tried to manage the rhythm and adapt to the conditions, pushing when it was clean and being smooth where it was rough. We did what we needed to today – obviously, you always need a bit of luck to get through without any trouble, and the rally is still long. We’re happy to be in the lead tonight, but we know that the rally is not over, and we need to try to repeat this performance tomorrow.”
Acropolis Rally Greece 2026, 25-28 June 2026
Photographer: Romain Thuillier
Worldwide copyright: Hyundai Motorsport GmbH
Adrien Fourmaux
“It’s been a very competitive day for us, with three of the six fastest times. We’re in a great place with the car, which was performing really well back on gravel, and it’s nice to see the results of the team’s hard work. It’s a shame we lost 30 seconds with a delamination that led to a puncture, but I want to focus on the positives. It’s a long game, and we’re still in the fight for the win.”
Dani Sordo
“It was not my best day today; it was disappointing to pick up a puncture on the second stage and lose some time. After that, I struggled for confidence, but we managed to regain a few positions and avoid being first on the road tomorrow. If this had happened on Saturday, it would have been much more difficult for us to recover a good result, and we’re in a position to have a much better day tomorrow.”
Toyota Gazoo Racing
Sébastien Ogier
“It was clear that today would be difficult as a team with the amount of loose gravel on the road. At least I had the best start position within the team, and I tried to use that as much as I could. In some sections we still saw the guys starting behind us could be quite a bit quicker, but overall, I think we can be happy. We had a good rhythm and stayed out of trouble on stages that were very abrasive for the tyres. So far it’s going to plan, but we need to keep it going the same way.”
Takamoto Katsuta
“It’s been quite a clean day overall for us. We tried our best to manage the tyres, and unfortunately we did pick up some damage a couple of times, but we know that this can happen in this kind of very extreme conditions. To be P6 overall tonight is quite good considering that we were second on the road. Of course, it could be better, but it could also be worse. Realistically I think we can still aim to catch the two cars in front of us tomorrow and otherwise try to stay away from problems, because anything can still happen in a rough rally like this.”
Elfyn Evans
“We knew that today was going to be tough in our position opening the road, but it turned out to be even tougher than we had expected. The cleaning effect on some of the stages today was really extreme. It’s very dry this year and we’ve started the rally with some rockier and more abrasive stages compared to last year, and the impact of that for us has been clear. We just have to keep trying tomorrow, which I’m sure will be another tough day to challenge everyone.”
Sami Pajari
“We had some nice stages during the morning loop, and I think that our pace was quite decent considering our road position. I felt that we were doing quite an OK job while trying to avoid any issues, but unfortunately the issues still came our way and in total we lost around two minutes. It means we are realistically out of the fight for the win, but there’s still two long days to go. Anything can happen and we just need to keep going.”
Oliver Solberg
“Today has been tougher than expected. To have the puncture in the first stage this morning was unfortunate, and after that we were just trying to stay out of trouble really. Then in the last stage of the day I got too wide in a right-hander and just got beached on the edge of the road, and when I tried to reverse I damaged the gearbox and ended up being stuck. It’s very frustrating, especially as we had not been pushing after what happened earlier. It’s been a tough run lately and we need to understand it and improve and keep our heads up.”
Saturday
The stages on the second day of the rally will see the crews five stages, two of which are only run once. It will be a challenging day indeed!
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