Neuville wins as Hyundai make h istory in Greece
Lamia: Thierry Neuville secured victory at EKO Acropolis Rally Greece on Sunday - fronting a historic Hyundai i20 N 1-2-3 finish.
The Belgian driver seized the top spot early on Saturday ater nine-time world champion Sébastien Loeb retired with alternator failure. From that moment onwards he never looked back.
Neuville’s Hyundai squad emerged from the penultimate day unscathed while several frontrunners hit trouble. He carried an advantage of almost half a minute over team-mate Ot Tanak into Sunday’s three-stage finale with Dani Sordo completing the podium lockout in third, according to WRC website.
Tanak brought back 2.9sec on the first pass through Elethori, but any hopes of the Estonian puting more pressure on his colleague were quashed as team orders came into play.
Fourth-placed Elfyn Evans - driving a Toyota GR Yaris - was sidelined by turbo problems on the road section before the opener, leaving the frontrunning trio more than three minutes clear of the field.
Under instructions to bring the cars home, all three Hyundai drivers went into safety mode. Their positions remained unchanged and Neuville took the spoils by 15.0sec - marking his first victory of the WRC’S hybrid era as well as a maiden podium lockout for the Korean manufacturer squad.
“It has been a tough season so far and to get the victory ater a very difficult weekend in Belgium is a relief,” Neuville said.
“The most important thing is that we have a 1-2-3 for the team. Ater all these years we finally got it and it’s a historical moment for the brand and the team. Everybody has worked hard for this and it’s a nice reward.”
Tanak’s score moved him to within 53 points of championship leader Kalle Rovanpera, who finished more than 17 minutes off the pace.
The 21-year-old Finn hit a tree on Saturday and haemorrhaged time nursing his Yaris car to the finish. He did, however, salvage four points from the Wolf Power Stage and could seal the crown at the next round should he outscore Tanak by eight points.
Pierre-louis Loubet fought back to equal his career-best result by finishing fourth overall aboard an M-sport Ford Puma. He briefly led and took two stage wins on Friday but tumbled down the standings with a front let puncture the following day, eventually ending 1min 52.5sec down on Sordo.
Loubet’s team-mate Craig Breen had similar issues on Friday but, aided by problems for those ahead, climbed to sixth overall. The Irishman trailed Loubet by 26.8sec with Toyota youngster Takamoto Katsuta 2min 12.1sec behind.
Such was the rate of atrition that support category cars accounted for the rest of the leaderboard.