Onto the second day then of action and the crews faced six stages over 108 kilometres, with four run in the morning, including two stages which would only be run once, then the service break before the final two stages in the afternoon. The Puma duo of Jourdain and Jon would open the road throughout the day as the first and second crews respectively into the stages.

 

First up then was SS8 Ghymno 1 a 19.6-kilometre stage and it was a good start from Seb who set the pace from Thierry and Adrien. Behind the top three, Elfyn was the best of the rest and looking ahead to the crews in front of him, Martins, Takamoto and Josh and in fact the Japanese driver had already moved ahead of the Latvian crew and into fifth place.

 

Into the single run of SS9 Kolines and Adrien was fastest from Seb and Thierry as the trio made the most of their advantages road positions as the last crews to finish the stage. Seb closed the gap to Thierry for the overall lead as well, bringing the gap down to less than five seconds. There was a change in positions as Takamoto passed Josh for fourth in the overall standings after the Irishman was twenty-five seconds slower. Elfyn was edging closer to Martins as well, the gap just under fourteen seconds now.

 

It was back to the top of the time sheets for Thierry in SS10 Menalo Mt 1 a 15-kilometre stage as he set the pace from Seb and Adrien. Meanwhile, Elfyn was on the move after setting the fifth fastest time and he passed Martins for fifth place overall. The Welshman was going well as he’d not just passed Martins, he was also faster than Josh and closed the gap to him in a battle for fifth place overall.

 

The final morning stage then with the single run through SS11 Kefalari before the service break and Seb was fastest from Thierry and Elfyn this time as he beat Adrien by just one tenth of a second. It was a good time from the Frenchman to set the pace as he’d damaged the rear wing on his car somewhere in the stage, just as well there was a service break really!

 

Just two stages remained then as the crews went first to SS12 Ghymno 2 and the first thing to report on was the stage was shortened by 4.5 kilometres to 15.1. This was due to the road near the original start position having deteriorated badly. Thierry was fastest by over seven seconds from Seb with Takamoto third in this one. Elfyn gained one position as Adrien suffered a puncture with the Welshman moving into fifth now and even closer to Josh who now held fourth by just four seconds. There would be drama though which was just plain ridiculous as later crews came through in the WRC2 category. Some spectators were being quite stupid with their behaviour, standing in the wrong places and the stage was red flagged. Frankly, they know who they are and should hang their heads in shame.

 

Now to the final stage of the day, SS13 Menalo Mt 2 and Seb was fastest from Adrien and Thierry. Sadly, there were two crews who suffered punctures in this one, the first being Dani, whose front right tyre failed after hitting a rock in the line at five kilometres into the stage. They decided to carry on and lost a minute. The other crew to have the same problem was Elfyn and it appears to have been in the same part of the stage as well. He and Scott stopped to change the wheel, and in the process lost almost two minutes and they fell to seventh overall. All their good work through the day was undone, but this is the nature of rally. From all of this Adrien was now back into fourth, with Josh now fifth and Sami gained two positions after the punctures for Elfyn and Dani.

Let’s take a look at the top ten and hear from the drivers.

 

Classification after Day Two

1	T. Neuville	M. Wydaeghe	Hyundai i20 N Rally1	2:40:18.7
2	S. Ogier	V. Landais	Toyota GR Yaris Rally1	+4.1
3	T. Katsuta	A. Johnston	Toyota GR Yaris Rally1	+2:17.0
4	A. Fourmaux	A. Coria	Hyundai i20 N Rally1	+3:00.6
5	J. McErlean	E. Treacy	Ford Puma Rally1	+3:01.6
6	S. Pajari	M. Salminen	Toyota GR Yaris Rally1	+4:38.3
7	E. Evans	S. Martin	Toyota GR Yaris Rally1	+4:43.1
8	D. Sordo	C. Carrera	Hyundai i20 N Rally1	+5:17.8
9	A. Mikkelsen	J. Listerud	Skoda Fabia RS	+5:54.6
10	R. Virves	J. Viilo	Skoda Fabia RS	+6:08.5

Hyundai Motorsport

Thierry Neuville

“I’m really happy with my day. Much like yesterday, I was feeling really comfortable in the car and managing both my speed and the roughness of the terrain. We’re getting closer to the end of the rally; our plan is to continue pushing to stay in first place. We know it isn’t over until you cross the final finish line, and tomorrow is going to be pretty rough – especially in the Power Stage. We have to cross our fingers and continue the job we’ve been doing so far this rally.”

Adrien Fourmaux

“Saturday was quite a challenging day. We were trying to manage the risk of punctures as much as we could, but unfortunately on the second pass of Menalo Mt we suffered one early on. We decided to stop and change, knowing we would lose the podium place. However, although we were sixth, we knew we were only 14 seconds away from fourth, so we pushed hard in the last stage. We managed to gain two positions, one on pace and the other as a result of Elfyn’s puncture. It’s a good road position for tomorrow, when everything is still possible. We are going to try and catch Taka, so my target is to go flat out and finish on the podium.”

Dani Sordo

“It is a shame our day ended in the way it did. We had a good stage time on SS12, finishing fourth fastest for the third time here in Greece. On SS13, we encountered rocks in the middle of the road, and we picked up our second puncture of the weekend. Now we focus on Sunday; while there are only four stages, it’s still going to be a long day, and we’re expecting the Power Stage to have a lot of stones. We’ll need to find the balance between pushing for points, and avoiding punctures that could punish us.”

 

Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT

Sébastien Ogier

“I think it’s been a good day for us. In places these roads were nice to drive, and in others it was just about trying to survive the roughness. In this last stage I was planning to push, and then seeing how many others were having trouble in there made me more unsure, but we managed to have a decent rhythm and keep the fight open until tomorrow. I’m happy with what we’ve done so far but the most important day is coming, where we need to secure the best result and extra points are also available. I will keep the same approach and we’ll see what happens.”

Takamoto Katsuta

“This morning the first target was to catch the two cars in front of us and we did that in two stages. After that it was just about managing the high risk of punctures, and I think we did quite a good job to get through the day without any problems. It’s nice to be in third overall tonight but tomorrow’s stages are maybe even rougher than today, so anything can still happen, and the main focus will be to finish without problems.”

Sami Pajari

“I think there was not so much more that we could have done today. On some stages we had quite solid pace, on others maybe not, but I think this was mainly down to the conditions because our road position was not great after yesterday’s troubles. We were able to gain a few places after issues for other drivers, and that also makes our road position better, so I think that gives us a chance to try and take a few more points tomorrow.”

Elfyn Evans

“The day was going pretty well; we were enjoying the cleaner roads; we had a good rhythm, and we were climbing up the leaderboard. Unfortunately, in the last stage we picked up a puncture. It came quite suddenly after an impact, and we had to stop and change it. It’s dropped us right back to where we started the day so we’ve got it all to do again tomorrow, and of course the road position will not be any easier either, but we’ll fight for what we can.”

 

Summary

Onto the final day then and although there are what appears to be not many stages, with four making up the total, with over 84 kilometres to go including two runs of Aghii Theodori at over 25 kilometres, the challenge remains big!