Tänak showed strong pace in the morning, leading the rally after two stages, but on the final stage of the morning loop, he lost over 11 seconds to Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier, who set an impressive fastest time.
While Tänak’s speed may have been off during the last morning stage, the Tarzan special stage, the Estonian was fortunate that it wasn’t due to any technical issue.
“It was a clean loop, so no drama, which is obviously already positive. drama, which in itself is positive,” Tänak said after the morning loop.
“I would say the first two were quite okay. Nothing too disturbing, probably. We were a bit too safe with the tyre choice this morning,” Tänak admitted.
On the Tarzan stage, Tänak’s car setup wasn’t quite right, which led to an unexpectedly large time loss.
“We probably went wrong with the car setup, so we were too much on the protective side, but there was quite a bit of loose gravel, so basically, it didn’t work.” Tänak recounted.
In the afternoon, the stages will change as they are driven for a second time, which could make things easier.
“Definitely very different conditions now. This morning there was quite low grip, so we expect it to be higher this afternoon, but also higher temperatures. It’s getting warm now, and the grip is getting better, so probably life will be a bit harder for them (leading cars),” Tänak predicted.
Three more stages are to be run on Friday at Acropolis Rally. The stages driven in the morning will now be repeated. Sebastien Ogier heads into the afternoon with a 5.9-second lead over Ford’s Adrien Fourmaux, with Tänak 9.8 seconds behind.
