2024 World Rally Champion and two-time Acropolis winner Thierry Neuville finished Friday morning's gravel loop in Greece 11.0 seconds ahead of S\u00e9bastien Ogier to take the lead overall. Jon Armstrong of M-Sport Ford also put up an impressive 21.2-second lead to third place.<\/p>\n
Ogier, who finished the night in first place after winning the super special stage on Thursday night, lost his advantage in the gravel stages on Friday morning as he was among the first drivers to open the tracks. Taking advantage of his leading position, Hyundai's Adrien Fourmaux finished the first gravel stage of the day just 0.1 seconds ahead of Neuville; Ogier was 2.2 seconds behind. This result put Neuville 0.7 seconds ahead of Fourmaux, giving him the overall lead.<\/p>\n
However, Fourmaux reversed the situation in the third special stage, leaving Neuville 1.9 seconds behind, and was about to enter the midday service in the lead. A front right tire blowout in the Stiri special stage, the final test before the sequential service, cost Fourmaux 31.4 seconds and dropped the Frenchman from first to fourth place. This accident gave the lead back to Neuville.<\/p>\n
Neuville, in a statement after the morning's events, emphasized how critical his tire management had been: \u201cI was ultimately at a very critical point regarding the tires. I should have started with six new tires this morning, that would have been better. The tracks are incredibly tough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Northern Irishman Jon Armstrong delivered the most impressive performance of the morning in his M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1. Armstrong recorded the third best time on the Mount Parnassos stage, tying Neuville for Stiri and moving up to third place, 7.1 seconds behind Ogier. \u201cWe had a pretty good run. The stage gets a bit rougher towards the end, I focused on staying clean and making good use of the traction,\u201d said Armstrong, effectively leveraging his road position advantage.<\/p>\n
Ogier didn't mince words about the challenging conditions: \u201cIt\u2019s completely a matter of luck, a lottery. The tires weren\u2019t designed for these conditions.\u201d Hankook is offering revised hard compound tires for the teams this weekend; however, many teams experienced deformations and punctures throughout the morning.<\/p>\n
It was a promising morning for M-Sport Ford; Josh McErlean and Martins Sesks both finished the stages confidently, placing them fifth and sixth in the overall standings. McErlean is 36.8 seconds behind the leader in fifth place, while Sesks finished sixth despite experiencing tire concerns in the final stage.<\/p>\n
Sami Pajari of Toyota finished seventh after experiencing a power loss issue at Stiri, while Takamoto Katsuta reached eighth place after a rear right tire deformation. Championship leader Elfyn Evans paid the price for the track openings, finishing ninth, 1 minute 18.6 seconds behind. Evans said, \u201cThe morning went worse than we expected; and we knew it would be bad. The huge stones in the uphill corners were terrible.\u201d.<\/p>\n
Evans' teammate Oliver Solberg lost over a minute in the first stage of the day due to a front left tire puncture, arriving at the midday session in 14th place. Dani Sordo also lost approximately two minutes in SS3 after having to change his front right tire. In the WRC2 category, Andreas Mikkelsen maintains his lead, 1.5 seconds ahead of Robert Virves.<\/p>\n