Sebastien Loeb takes comfortable win in Acropolis Rally

Loeb's third Acropolis Rally victory was not an easy one, as he had to overcome both a late puncture and stern challenges from both Ford drivers to secure the win, taking the power stage bonus points as well.

Jari-Matti Latvala led early on, before losing time with an overshoot and handling issues. The Finn, returning to the series after missing Argentina with a broken collarbone, charged back to get within a second of Loeb again, only for a mistake on Saturday to cause a puncture and brake damage, leaving him four minutes off the lead by the end of the day. Latvala eventually finished third.

In the other works Ford, Petter Solberg initially lost ground with a tyre choice error, had a scare when he damaged the underside of his car, and then began carving back into Loeb's lead only to crash out on Sunday's first stage.

All of that left Loeb two minutes clear of Citroen team-mate Mikko Hirvonen, a sufficient margin to hold the lead even when he had to stop and change a punctured tyre with three stages to go.

Hirvonen had dropped a bit of time to a puncture on Friday, but also lacked the pace to stay with the other frontrunners, so was pleased to complete a Citroen one-two ahead of Latvala.

Amid heavy attrition in the rest of the WRC field, Mads Ostberg (Adapta Ford) recovered from a trip off the road on Friday to come back to fourth, ahead of the consistent Martin Prokop's Czech Ford.

Thierry Neuville succeeded in getting through a weekend without using Rally 2, but did lose several minutes with a broken driveshaft on Friday, leaving him a distant sixth for Citroen Junior.

Results after SS22:

Pos  Driver               Team/Car            Time/Gap
 1.  Sebastien Loeb       Citroen           4h42m03.3s
 2.  Mikko Hirvonen       Citroen              + 40.0s
 3.  Jari-Matti Latvala   Ford               + 3m04.8s
 4.  Mads Ostberg         Adapta Ford        + 6m16.4s
 5.  Martin Prokop        Czech Ford         + 7m46.5s
 6.  Thierry Neuville     Citroen Junior     + 9m41.4s
 7.  Sebastien Ogier      VW Skoda          + 12m59.9s
 8.  Yazeed Al Rahji      Yazeed Ford       + 20m12.2s
 9.  Ott Tanak            M-Sport Ford      + 23m18.9s
10.  Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari  Seashore Mini     + 28m40.5s

Other WRC finishers:

11.  Armindo Araujo       Portugal Mini     + 30m28.6s
12.  Spyros Pavlides      Autotek Ford      + 33m51.6s
17.  Paulo Nobre          Portugal Mini     + 59m10.2s
18.  Oleksii Tamrazov     Ford            + 1h04m53.4s

WRC retirements:

     Petter Solberg       Ford                    SS18
     Evgeny Novikov       M-Sport Ford            SS18
     Nasser Al-Attiyah    Qatar Citroen           SS18
     Daniel Oliveira      Brazil Ford             SS18

Leading power stage times:

Pos  Driver               Team/Car            Time/Gap
 1.  Sebastien Loeb       Citroen              2m21.8s
 2.  Jari-Matti Latvala   Ford                  + 0.6s
 3.  Mikko Hirvonen       Citroen               + 1.3s
 4.  Mads Ostberg         Adapta Ford           + 2.0s
 5.  Ott Tanak            M-Sport Ford          + 2.0s