Tänak maintained consistent and strong pace throughout Friday and eventually climbed to the top of the leaderboard during the afternoon loop, overtaking Toyota’s Sébastien Ogier.
Tänak handled Greece’s harsh and demanding conditions the best, even if it was anything but easy.
“I’d like to take some care, but obviously the pace is so high that you can’t really be completely safe. So it’s just about managing in between,” Tänak said at the end of the day.
The operating window of Hyundai’s Rally1 car is notoriously narrow, but Tänak has occasionally managed to extract the maximum from it. In Greece, that appears to be the case again.
“Either way, setup-wise it’s been quite complicated, to be honest. Like we said in the morning, we tried a different transmission for this rally, and obviously we found out right away that it’s not working. So we had to carry on with it through the day. But I mean, we’re here, so we need to be happy with that,” Tänak commented.
At this stage, the fight for victory in Greece looks set to be between two Hyundai drivers and one from Toyota. Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux sits second, exactly three seconds behind Tänak after Friday. Ogier is third, trailing by 16.9 seconds.
“Today, especially the second part of the day, was a bit more flowing and a bit faster. Tomorrow, we go back to quite technical roads. The first two are really narrow, small roads in the forest. How it turns out, we’ll find out. Obviously, today Adrien had a much better road position, so tomorrow we’re in the same position – it should be a fair fight,” Tänak previewed.
Of course, Sébastien Ogier will also have something to say in this battle. The season’s recurring theme seems to be Tänak and Ogier finding each other in the fight for victory – and that could be the case here too. But Tänak was quick to remind everyone of the unpredictable nature of the Acropolis Rally. Anything can still happen.
“We definitely need to manage the pace and find the optimum rhythm. But in the end, it’s still Greece. Like we saw today, so much is happening, and it’s definitely a lot of punishment for the car and the tyres. We just need to manage it as best we can – and hopefully we’ll do it well enough,” Tänak concluded.
