67. EKO Acropolis Rally Greece 2023
7. 9. – 10. 9. 2023, Lamia • Motorsport Greece + OMAE • gravel 270.89 km • total distance including road sections - 1260.15 km • Other years
Info
SS15
"Of course it's a big relief. After a difficult Rally Finland we needed to come back now, even though we never left. Starting first and finishing first is quite nice."
"Looks like it wasn't so bad in the end. Definitely Dani had me a bit worried after this first pass this morning, bit of a relief to be honest. I'm sure this guy behind's going to be coming pretty quickly so let's see."
"I try everything. I'm not really, really happy with my performance this weekend but thanks to the team to give me an opportunity like thus."
"The fast ones are coming from behind for sure, I still tried to do everything I can. Friday was really devastating for everyone, M-Sport was really down and this one was really tough day. But we came back."
"I did a couple of small mistakes so it wasn't optimum, but pretty aggressive run yeah. Fun!"
"I was trying but I was making too many mistakes, and then losing time. Car working very well but I was just not using this car on the limit, not good. Let's see next one in Chile, I try to do my best."
"I'm feeling I just want to go home, there's not much to say. Sometimes it's like this in rally. We move on and onto the next one." When is the next one? "Probably Germany."
"YES! We are first Greek, so the objective was there. Fantastic week. Thanks to all the Greek fans," he said, almost welling up.
"This is a special one, this is really a special one. After Friday everything looked so dark and we decided we had nothing to lose, we just said f*** it we go. We drove the fastest we could every corner the whole rally. We changed the rear diff in the last service, it was really on the limit but you guys are incredible."
"It's cleaning a bit in there, so I don't think it's good enough but for the road position and the tires we have left it was a really good time."
"For sure I'd be lying if I said I wans't disappointed. It's a shame we couldn't challenge Andreas to the end. Unfortunately the one person I had to outscore we haven't. But second's not a bad result."
"Before the rally if you said to me I am in the podium here I say OK. But when you are leading the rally and play for the win, it's different. But the work is not bad, honestly. The car improved a lot after Portugal and Sardinia but we will see what happens on the next few events."
"Honestly today I still think about all the people who are touched by the floods. We have to say congratulations to the organisers of the rally for organising this despite the conditions."
SS14
"The way this rally's been going, it's never over until it's over. I think we literally need to finish the rally now and that would be it, but it's easier said than done so let's just keep focused."
"Anything championship is over, since Eamonn retired from second that promotes William to fifth. But very happy to be here, enjoying it."
"There's not much I can do, whenever I brake the front left's completely locked."
"We have something mechanically wrong when I pull the handbrake, the car just locks, and then the engine was not running properly after that so I have no handbrake and then I thought I was in the finish, but I was not in the finish. Chaotic stage."
"We need to finish the job today and hopefully get some points. I didn't feel so good on this one now but hopefully on better tires we can do something on the powerstage."
"I need to try, but at the same time I don't want to make any mistake. To be on the podium is nice but to be second is better. I'm sad I lost a lot of time on the first stage but it's like it is."
"Obviously the big question is how fast Dani is behind, so let's see."
"Considering where we did recce here it was obviously very tricky with the notes, so quite many challenges. I guess it's for everyone tricky first pass."
"Hard tires not really optimum, but I saw his [Katsuta's] lines. He was quite far off!"
"We just overshoot in the beginning of the stage - it was tricky enough to be honest!"
"I try to do some spectacle in this one. It's a good stage - very technical but fun with the jumps and also it's very tricky in the middle. It's a good day!"
"We did a good recce run for the powerstage - it's just for fun it's not really about the points anymore."
SS13
"The driveshaft's about to go or the front diff's about to go. Another problem this weekend, so..."
"We had a clean drive, everything was working well. We haven't changed approach since yesterday. We cannot give more, it's not like we can increase, we're in a good rhythm so all good."
"Yeah, it feels quite a long stage when you are not driving properly. It's not so easy when you don't have any pace and a proper rhythm, but it's OK we are here."
"We have three soft tires, the stage was really humid in places so we lost a lot of traction. But at least we tried."
"It was quite OK, maybe a little careful at the beginning. But let's see what he [Sordo] does."
"It was nice, very nice. I enjoyed it, yeah."
"Quite OK, just the conditions are not so great. Even first pass there are a few ruts from recce."
"Difficult. Don't think we have the right choice on the tires - we have hard on the front, it was a mistake. I have to improve for the next two ones."
"A little bit rough, but I'm obviously not driving so fast anymore. But the car is also not 100% anymore, so need to check."
"It's quite tricky. Obviously I didn't work a lot on the videos and I just drive through. Not much to say to be honest."
SS12
Puncture
Damaged suspension
Puncture
"It was super rough and I had some noise scraping in the back quite early in the stage. After what happened this morning I thought we needed to get the car through."
Retired on road section
"Long book, many different kind of things, but yeah when it starts to go wrong it goes wrong badly. Hoping a better day tomorrow."
"Not good luck but we are here and I cannot get any more punctures! So it was not so nice to drive over all the rocks."
"I was trying my best without trying to make a mistake. It was a really nice stage, I really enjoyed. The car was working very well."
"I think the rear axle is loose so the rear is lively, quite sketchy in this one so I did a couple of mistakes because of that."
"Some ruts, a little bit more difficult than the first pass. Of course it's completely dry but it's difficult for the car. We took it carefully and we finished a very good day."
SS11
"This one is really clean, it's OK, just focus on driving well. It's been a good stage for me."
"It's not so nice to be fighting against Seb for the win. He has nothing to lose and I need to think about the championship also. Especially second pass it's not so comfortable - you all the time think about whether to take the risk or not."
"Basically two punctures, we had to change both. It's a lot of loose rocks and I went a bit too much inside and I clipped some rocks and got puncture on front right, front left both."
Puncture
"Transmission is broken, alternator is broken. Yeah... done."
Changed a second wheel
Changed a wheel
SS10
Lost front parts of car -> Super Rally
Stopped
"To be fair it was fairly sketchy in places, the car was wanting to roll so much in the ruts. I imagine Andreas isn't going to care..."
"I don't know where, it's crazy but sometimes you take a rock but now, no. It's like that."
Puncture
Stopped
"I mean that's always a shame, we had a good fight, was fun to fight with him. But that's the way it is - it's rough out there."
Stopped
Broken steering
"Ott with hard tires, he made a good time. It will be difficult in the next one because we have three and three [three softs, three hards]."
"This one was probably the most damp, so in places it was a bit tricky. I wouldn't say it was a disaster but for sure not optimum at the moment [with this tire choice]."
SS9
Puncture
Changed a wheel
"On the second pass my god that's going to be horrific."
Accident
"We had a good stage but it's getting too rough in there. I'm not sure second pass will be possible. Last year second pass was destroyed but this year it's going to be on another level, so we need to be careful about that."
"Bit rougher and maybe I was not daring the risk enough."
Told stage-end reporter he didn't know what was wrong, but the oil temperature was high
"Straight away when the road is not fully dry I seem to enjoy the driving much more. The car just works better on soft compound tire and in this kind of condition for my driving."
"Too much [going on] for me, but let's go to service and try to fix the car and try to enjoy the afternoon."
Mechanical
"I tried to do my best but I lost some time in some parts that were really critical. On the recce this stage was so bad, so it's difficult with limited information."
"Quite rough in here. High speed and very rocky. But we are nicely through so no worries."
"This one was so nice! It's dry, there are two lines that are already done very well so from my point-of-view it's a very clean stage. A lot of fun - this one, a lot of fun!"
SS8
Steering
Accident
"I had a good stage but I just was a bit too hard on the tires at the beginning so I lost them towards the end. Now if we have enough tires left for the last one, it was a good loop."
"I did a mistake, I missed a junction. I stalled the engine."
"There was a massive stone on a long, flat right on the really narrow downhill, we are lucky that it's only a puncture. It was so big. But for sure, not really good."
Mechanical
"We put hard tires in the car and it was really, really slippery. The cleaning effect in this stage it will be amazing."
"Probably the first proper Greece stage - full dry, full loose. Just trying to get through."
"The stage is completely dry, maximum cleaning, but still we enjoy it. We did it some years ago in the Greek championship and we like it very much. Nice stage."
Changed a wheel
SS7
Transmission, retired for the day
Puncture
"I had a good stage, I don't know. I couldn't do really more to be honest."
"Difficult stage. The mud in the middle was quite challenging, little bit of a moment and also quite bad kick, but quite bad kick!"
"You never know what to expect when you get better road position, and for sure today the condition is much trickier - so much wetter and muddier"
Lost wheel
"No handbrake. The slowest stage of the rally and no handbrake. It's a nightmare."
"We spun. It was a very narrow section so it was three times, four times back and forward. Not good."
"Very slippery at the end - narrow and quite difficult conditions. Maybe there is road cleaning a little bit in the end. It's difficult to have a perfect car in these conditions."
"Quite OK. Seems like the guys have put some safe mode in, as it's running on some really low power and boost."
Spin
SS6
"A slow puncture but I think it was more a debead. I'm not happy because it shouldn't happen like that. It's a shame but the rally's still really long."
Puncture
"At the moment for sure the conditions are helping. Beginning and end where it's dry it's definitely our benefit. We had quite a big noise from the exhaust from the start, but it's here so it's fine."
Changed a wheel
"We had a stall in a corner a little but, we lost 10s something like this, but we still lost a lot of time in general. It was not a really positive day. Let's see tomorrow."
Stalled
"Still we need to nurse through the road section [with broken radiator] but we survive the day. Not really happy with the car so we need to do something for tomorrow."
"I felt that it was missing, but no idea why," Ogier said of his missing wing. "It's still very close."
"There was a lot of low branches, maybe that explains it."
"It has been drying up quickly, not optimal for us of course. There is not much more I can do, let's say. It was a clean day."
SS5
Accident
"I didn't see it but probably there was a big rock in the line and I hit it sideways and it probably debeaded the tire."
Puncture
"I believe, I don't know details, but probably same as Loubet had. But we had it just going into tire fitting. We had to take everything apart and fix it up, but at least we didn't retire completely. Our road position is not too bad at the moment."
"Same again, like the other stages, around 10km. There must be something wrong, for sure, because nothing again, out of the blue, rear-left again. There must be something... either the car, or the tires, something is not correct."
"I love this one, probably the most beautiful of the rally. The conditions are good, so... maximum fun!"
"It's very obvious that we, I don't know, we have no grip here. It's quite hard to drive."
Puncture
"It was the right choice for there but rally is very long and we don't have that many softs."
"I don't know, probably the tires," he said, when asked what the secret to the time was. "Tough to make a choice before the stage, in the end I said go all in. What we can take now will be good for tomorrow, but it wasn't a nice stage to be honest."
"Pretty slippy but also quite rough, quite a lot of unexepcted impacts from these water trenches. You just never knew what's coming next."
"[It's cleaning] a lot. The stage was so horrible, a lot of loose gravel - a lot more than I was expecting after the rain. Not easy."
SS4
"We solved the problem with the engine I think, so now we got the power. Now it's much more enjoyable. We changed the map and now it's OK."
"I tried to be a bit careful because I really felt I'm scrubbing them [the soft tires], so I backed off a bit."
"It's been a good stage, I think it's probably the easiest of the afternoon because the next two stages are very challenging, probably very different to what we've seen on recce."
"It was a good run, but I got kicked out of the line a couple of times due to the ruts. The soft tire is moving a lot, so it was a bit too hard for the soft tire."
"I guess it's going to get better and better for every car, but all OK. Still some horrible rocks lying about so we picked our way through."
"Quite OK condition overall, for sure not too good for us. It's really dry now so a lot of loose gravel after the small cars."
SS3
Rolled
“I think the road is getting worst. There is mud in places. I had a good feeling with the car and I thought I had a good stage”.
“It was Ok. We had a small issue with an engine from yesterday, we have now power.”
"I was too careful in some muddy places. I didn't know what expect from the stages and I didn't want take any unnecessary risks at this point of the rally.
"Last year I was pushing flat out the whole rally, and now I go so slow, so careful and puncture in the last stage and puncture in this stage. I don't know what to do."
Puncture
Stopped
"I'm doing what I can but... not good."
"Yeah OK, it's been a clean drive honestly I'm happy but you can take more risk on the muddy sections. A little bit on the safe side but just the beginning of the rally."
"It's quite equal at the moment for everyone [in terms of road position], it's just a massive fight in the car. No way it's driving like it should."
"I was crashing through a lot. I had to take it steady in some of the compression, I could have rolled the car over the front if I wanted so I need to be careful."
"It felt pretty hard on the car to be honest, it didn't feel like the smoothest run. Looks like the time's pretty bad."
"Huge moment on this one water dip lets say which was much worse than it was during the recce, but we are here."
SS2
Rolled
"Fuel pressure somehow, so it just stopped and go and stopped and go. Tried to reset it in the stage but it didn't work. We've had the problem before, so it's not fixed."
Fuel pump issue?
"You tell me how that happened? I don't know. Just 2km after the start, no hits or anything, just started to lose pressure, pressure, pressure and it delaminated. I couldn't do anything differently."
Puncture
Mechanical
"Basically this is my shakedown for this rally, so it's fine. I just try to find my rhythm."
"I don't know. Felt good but seems too slow - way too slow."
"Quite a simple stage, wide and very fast. It is like normal, nothing is new, but we try."
"Road position is improving, that's for sure. There are already some lines I really could benefit from. We need to work a bit on the car, without shakedown there's a few small adjustments to do."
Puncture
"It was OK. With this wind it's drying up very quickly the stages. The loose gravel is sticking out so a bit of cleaning for us to do, but anyway that's how it is."