After Pierre-Louis Loubet had taken the overall lead for the first time in his WRC career, Sebastien Loeb produced a late fightback to wrestle the Acropolis Rally lead from his M-Sport team-mate on Friday afternoon. Full report from TommyHoward ⬇️
The nine-time world champion, making a return to the World Rally Championship this weekend, ended the day with a 1.7s advantage as fellow Ford Puma driver Loubet produced the best performance of his WRC career to date., but an error in the afternoon helped open the door for Loubet to claim a maiden WRC stage win on Stage 5. The 2019 WRC2 champion’s pace was enough to take the outright rally lead for the first time in his career.
Championship leader and roadsweeper Kalle Rovanpera navigated the six stages 1m07.8s in arrears in ninth, behind M-Sport’s Gus Greensmith and Toyota’s Elfyn Evans. Takamoto Katsuta completed the top 10 ahead of a recovering Craig Breen, who suffered a puncture early on. “It [a WRC stage win] was close so many times this year, we deserved this one,” said Loubet, who returned to the WRC this year after a dismal 2021 that ended in him suffering a broken hip after being hit by a car when crossing a street in Paris.Loubet’s pace was aided by cleaner road conditions, as many of the championship front runners were left scrambling for grip on the loose gravel. Rovanpera dropped 16.2s in SS5, while Tanak shipped 11.
Loeb seemingly was unable to find answer to the Toyota’s driver’s pace, stating: “I think Lappi is very fast now. I did quite a good stage, so there's no real reason [for the time loss].”
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