ERC: Acropolis Rally / Rally review
All good things…
… come to an end. Despite winning the fourth
stage, Abbring was worried and for good reason.
Suspicious fluids were leaking from his car causing concern on wether or not the car was going
to survive. The answer came sooner rather than
later “We had an overheating problem in stage
number five and we stopped to try to fix it but we
couldn’t find anything. After the stage we were
forced to stop completely to prevent any further
damage.” Game over for Abbring who had impressed many with his pace but was unable to
capitalize on his performance. Abbring’s misfortune though propelled Craig Breen into the lead.
His second stage win of the day came on the sixth
and final stage of the day to increase his lead to
14.7 seconds over second placed Bryan Bouffier.
It’s me, usually
The new Peugeots were the talk of the town
on day one, and the other championship regulars were left to figure out how they could have
been so fast. Second placed Bryan Bouffier did
not have to look far to find the answer. “I made
a mistake. It was written in my pacenotes that
I have to cut a corner. I followed my pacenote
but, unfortunately, there was a rock inside, it was
completely my fault. On stage three I was a bit
optimistic on the braking and went straight on at
a hairpin so the second mistake from my side“.
Very honest of the Frenchman who found some
positives too “. In the afternoon it was quite good
and I have to be happy with this tricky day on
this tricky rally.” Third belonged to Kajetan Kajetanowicz who was all smiles at the end of the
27/42
Small mistakes frustrated Bouffier who felt he should have done better.
day “I am happy to be here between these guys.
It was a really fantastic day for us and absolutely
crazy with these stages.“ Those stages, new and
unknown to most turned out to be both very slippery and very fast, a lethal combination. The high
speeds generated on the stages left Esapekka
Lappi frustrated behind the RRC/R5 drivers. His
Skoda Fabia S2000 is not turbo charged unlike
his rivals, and he was suffering from it. “This is
more or less the speed we can do and if I push
more I will crash. For sure my lack of experience
on tarmac makes a difference and I don’t have
the confidence but also we don’t have the turbo
compared to the others.”
Finns are never really at home on tarmac, so when the gravel came Lappi was happy.