Thierry Neuville hopes that he will carry the momentum fighting for victories on the next WRC rounds after the encouraging pace that Hyundai showed at Acropolis Rally while he has mixed feelings from Greece as he feels disappointed with his missing win there.
Thierry Neuville was leading Acropolis Rally since the end of Stage 2 and was managing his gap from the second Sebastien Ogier who managed to cut the Belgian's lead to 3,7 seconds at the end of Saturday morning. However, Neuville increased further his lead to 10,8 seconds after the opening Saturday afternoon stage, but Ogier responded by setting the fastest time in Stage 13. At the end of Saturday, Neuville was still leading Acropolis Rally with a 4,1-second advantage over Ogier who started the final day of the rally in a positive way. In fact, the nine-time WRC Champion was faster than Neuville in Stage 14 which means that Ogier stole the Neuville's lead for 1,3 seconds. At the next stage, Ogier and Neuville set an identical pace in Stage 15 which means that the Toyota driver was 1,3 seconds ahead of Neuville with two stages remaining until the end of Acropolis Rally. Bad luck stroke Neuville who got two punctures at the rear in SS16 resulting in dropping 53,5 seconds there. His time loss was massive and was not able to fight back for the victory in Powerstage, so he remained second overall. Finally, Neuville remains sixth on the drivers' standings, but he shares the fifth place with Adrien Fourmaux as both of them have 95 points on the championship after Acropolis Rally.
"All in all, I have mixed feelings at the end of this rally", Neuville said.
"I’m obviously very disappointed not to be able to fight for the victory until the very end, but on the other hand I am very happy about our pace and the improvements we demonstrated this weekend.
"There are a lot of positives to take from Acropolis Rally, and we’ve also scored a solid haul of points.
"This gives us a good opportunity to get back into the championship fight, which was looking quite difficult for us.
"The fact that the championship leaders did not score many points is also good for us.
"With more gravel rallies to come, I hope we can carry this momentum forward".
Photo Credits: Hyundai
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