Citroën Total World Rally Team driver Sébastien Loeb retains his lead after the second day of the Acropolis Rally of Greece. However, the Frenchman has had his share of problems and only regained his advantage in the penultimate stage. Second place was held by team-mate Dani Sordo until the final stage, but tyre problems for the Spaniard saw him plummet down the leaderboard to seventh overnight. As a consequence, Petter Solberg moves up to second in the new Impreza WRC and brother Henning (Stobart Ford) now holds third.
Today has been another tough day of competition over rock-strewn roads and the two loops of three stages covering 119.12 kilometres have taken their toll. Loeb started the day with a 15.7 second advantage but he had the task of cleaning the roads and lost valuable time in the first stage. By the end of the next one he had lost his lead to Sordo, after suffering a rear puncture which cost him more than 30 seconds. However, the Frenchman has battled hard and ultimately retook the lead this afternoon when Sordo also picked up a puncture. Loeb overnights with a 28.7 second lead.
Petter Solberg unexpectedly climbed to second in the final stage, when Sordo lost nearly four and a half minutes running on another punctured tyre. He and brother Henning are split by 36.6 seconds overnight. After his problems yesterday, Mikko Hirvonen (BP Ford) has climbed to fourth, but he lost more time today with broken suspension. His team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala dropped from sixth to eighth with turbo failure this afternoon.
Suzuki’s Toni Gardemeister has also struggled with turbo problems and overnights in 10th. Team-mate P-G Andersson retired with suspension failure. Hydraulics put Gigi Galli (Stobart Ford) out, the Italian stopping on the road section to the fourth stage, and Chris Atkinson (Subaru) was halted with electrical problems.
Acropolis Rally of Greece - Results after Day 2
| 1 | Sébastien Loeb/Daniel Elena | Citroën C4 WRC | 2 hr 48 min 11.1sec |
| 2 | Petter Solberg/Phil Mills | Subaru Impreza WRC | 2 hr 48 min 39.8sec |
| 3 | Henning Solberg/Cato Menkerud | Ford Focus RS WRC | 2 hr 49 min 16.4sec |
| 4 | Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lehtinen | Ford Focus RS WRC | 2 hr 51 min 12.3sec |
| 5 | Urmo Aava/Kuldar Sikk | Citroën C4 WRC | 2 hr 52 min 22.7sec |
| 6 | Matthew Wilson/Scott Martin | Ford Focus RS WRC | 2 hr 52 min 33.9sec |
| 7 | Dani Sordo/Marc Marti | Citroën C4 WRC | 2 hr 53 min 44.7sec |
| 8 | Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Anttila | Ford Focus RS WRC | 2 hr 57 min 02.4sec |
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