RALLY OF GREECE
FINAL / ROCKS AND REWARDS
Greece is a favoured destination for lovers of antique pottery,
but the Acropolis Rally was characterised by stones that were
somewhat less ancient and more aggressive than anything found
in a museum. At the end of the rough and rocky stages, Kronos
Racing finishes once more with all three Citroen Xsaras in
the points.
Thanks to Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena, who finished second,
and Xevi Pons/Carlos Del Barrio, who were eighth the Kronos
Total Citroen World Rally Team will spend the two-month summer
break leading both the drivers and manufacturers championships.
Having swept the road clean at the start of the rally, Seb
dropped 35 seconds on Friday. With a better set-up for the
conditions he took second place and reduced the gap to the
leader to 25 seconds, before a puncture on Saturday evening
obliged him to call a ceasefire and settle for the eight points
that came with second place. « It was a difficult rally
» concluded the World Championship leader. « What
with sweeping the road clean, getting a puncture and a tricky
journey back to service, I’m very happy to come away
with eight points for second place. Once more, I take my hat
off to the entire Kronos team for putting my Xsara back into
shape on Saturday night. Marcus was very quick, but nonetheless
we managed to get some time back off him on Saturday. From
Germany onwards, I know he’ll be right there. It will
be a very close fight, as always, but those tight battles
with him are always the best ones… »
Xevi Pons will probably be able to challenge for the world
puncture record, having collected them throughout the event.
Thankfully he was prevented from losing too much time by BFGoodrich’s
anti-deflation mousse, which holds up the tyre if any air
escapes. « I can’t hide the fact that I am personally
a bit disappointed » said Xevi openly. « I expected
to be a bit quicker on this terrain that we were all discovering
for the first time. As well as that – or perhaps because
of that – I didn’t really enjoy myself here. It’s
not nice to hear the car taking all those impacts, to be constantly
on edge and not to be able to drive in a relaxed way. Luckily
I succeeded in my main objective, which was to bring some
manufacturer points to the team. »
Dani Sordo, in a third Kronos-run Xsara rented by his loyal
backers, once more surpassed expectations. The results of
his first half-season in a World Rally Car are almost unheard
of : eight rallies, eight finishes, seven times in the points,
and three podiums ! The Spaniard from Santander climbed as
high as fourth overall in Greece by getting the better of
Manfred Stohl, Henning Solberg and Toni Gardemeister. The
fact that a faulty spark plug on SS14 dropped him to sixth
is almost academic. Dani said : « I’m pleased
to finish just 0.8 seconds from Henning Solberg, having taken
more than 30 seconds off him in two stages. Without the kilometres
I spent stuck in the dust behind Kosti Kajamaki, who set off
just in front of me on Avlonas [SS14] everything would have
been fine. »
«We’ve just been through an Acropolis Rally that
is truly worthy of its legend » concluded Kronos team
principal Marc Van Dalen. « The rough roads have certainly
taken their toll on us but with all three Xsaras well-placed
at the finish, our team has once more shown the quality of
its work. We go into the second half of the season leading
both championships and we will do everything to ensure that
we continue to deserve the confidence of Citroen Sport and
our partners… »
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