Neuville and Ogier take damage in Rally Greece as Rovanpera takes lead

Toyota’s Kalle Rovanpera took the lead in Rally Greece after both, teammate, Sebastien Ogier and Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville suffered damage on the third day of running. 

The battle for the rally lead was juicy, mouth-watering then it was heartbreaking as Neuville and Ogier leapfrogged each other for the rally’s top honours. This soon came to an end by the end of the day as they were both hit with significant damage.

On the opening stage of the day, Pavliani, Ogier took the rally lead as he finished the seventh stage 10 seconds ahead of Neuville while Rovanpera took the stage win. However, a stage later, the new rally leader misjudged a left-hand corner and stalled his Rally1 Yaris in the process.

In turn, this allowed Neuville to take the rally lead once more. The lead came to a crushing end for the Belgian Hyundai driver, on stage 10, as he ran over a small ditch which caused significant damage to his i20’s front-right suspension. 

While Neuville stopped out on track, it promoted Ogier back into the lead. The Frenchman’s lead would not last forever either as he suffered significant damage to the rear-left suspension of his Yaris, on the last stage of the day. Ogier was able to continue to the end but he had a tyre which lent unnaturally in-towards the car and he fell to ninth in the overall standings.

This allowed Rovanpera to inherit the race lead two minutes ahead of Hyundai’s Daniel Sordo who was second. The Spaniard had five seconds in hand over Toyota’s Elfyn Evans in third. 

Despite his hefty penalty on Friday, M-Sport Ford’s Ott Tanak moved up a few positions as benefitted from Neuville and Ogier’s misfortunes. The Estonian finished the penultimate day of running in fourth over two minutes behind Evans. 

Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi rounded out the top five, six minutes off the rally lead and nearly a minute and a half behind Tanak. The Finnish driver suffered his own problems throughout the third day of action as he suffered mechanical problems with his handbrake and he had to pull off the course, later on, to fix a puncture. 

Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta was 46 seconds behind Lappi, in sixth, as his day of action was hindered by punctures. The Japanese driver had to stop twice in the penultimate day to repair two punctures. 

A handful of WRC2 drivers occupied the remaining places inside the top 10, led by Britain’s own Gus Greensmith as the WRC2 rally leader – seventh in the overall standings. Andreas Mikkelsen was close behind, in eighth, with Yohan Rossel down in 10th. 

Only Ogier split the two WRC2 championship contenders, Mikkelsen and Rossel, in ninth. 

With Pierre-Louis Loubet out of the running after Friday’s problems, Jourdan Serderidis completed the M-Sport Ford’s WRC line-up down in 19th, between the WRC2 and Junior WRC classes.

That’s all for the article; Neuville and Ogier take damage in Rally Greece as Rovanpera takes lead!

Read more WRC here:

• Neuville remains just ahead of Ogier after Day 2 in Rally Greece
• Rovanpera wins new Rally Greece super special stage in Athens
• Mikkelsen leads WRC2 after opening solo stage in Rally Greece
• WRC Rally Greece: Shakedown cancelled, who can eat into Rovapera’s lead
• Evans secures Rally Finland victory comfortably ahead of Neuville
• Evans evades Neuville’s challenge after third day of WRC Rally Finland

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Kamron Kent

Hi, I’m Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion.

I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I’ve loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.

Kamron Kent

Hi, I'm Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion. I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I've loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.