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The Rally Acropolis makes the WRC tougher
The WRC arrives in Greece to celebrate one of the most classic races in the calendar: the Rally Acropolis. The seventh test in this year’s championship is one of the toughest of the whole year due to the very demanding combination of some specials and the extreme conditions. The novelty this year lies in a small change in the route which now returns to the tradition of finishing at the base of the Acropolis in Athens.
The Rally of Acropolis is a really tough race - this year it will have 20 specials and 339 timed kilometres. The route will hardly vary if compared to the one used in previous years, and so the drivers will drive to the north and west of Athens. The only novelty this year is that the organisers want to pay their homage to the traditional finish for this race and so it will end at the base of the Acropolis monument.
The Citröen driven by Sebastien Loeb and Daniel Elena will start this race as the big favourite after the excellent victory the two achieved in Sardinia, although Greek terrain is not a place where the team has achieved good results in the last few years. This weekend Loeb will try to take over the lead in the driver’s classification which is currently in the hands of the Finnish Ford driver, Mikko Hirvonen. All in all Loeb admits that this is not "my favourite rally since the cars suffer a lot on these very tough specials."
On the other hand, his teammate Daniel Sordo will try to finish on the podium again. The Spanish driver says that he will need to avoid punctures in this rally, or at least to be as fast as possible when stopping to change a wheel if it is necessary". Sordo also stated that starting out fifth before the first special is a factor that may be in his favour. "This is a rally where being patient is necessary, it is an endurance test and one where you have to take care of the car" he says.
5/28/2008
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