After restarting under the SupeRally ruling for the third and final day of the 2009 Acropolis Rally of Greece, Dani Sordo and Marc Marti achieved their aims by scoring four points for Citroën in the Manufacturers’ world championship.

Day 3 of the Acropolis Rally was held near the service park in Loutraki. The day began with a loop comprising three stages, including a run through Aghii Theodori, a daunting 33 km stage.

After restarting in 17th position in the overall standings, the only goal for Dani Sordo and Marc Marti was to finish in order to score a handful of points for Citroën in the Manufacturers’ championship. Arriving in Loutraki for the midday service, Dani Sordo was fully focused on the job in hand:

“It’s never easy to run at a controlled pace but I’m taking no risks. I’m staying in the middle of the road – at times, it feels like we’re doing a recce!”

Day 2 of the Acropolis Rally of Greece proved just as tough as the teams had feared. On the first special stage of the day, Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena were forced to retire after going off. Two stages later, it was the turn of Dani Sordo and Marc Marti to get caught out.

The Spanish pairing will restart tomorrow under the SupeRally ruling to try to score Manufacturers’ points. After a first day on the Greek mainland, the Acropolis Rally continued today in the Peloppenese. The day’s programme included two loops of three special stages, with a thirty minute service interval in
Loutraki.

Running third, some 20 seconds behind the leaders, Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena were hoping to reduce the gap as they headed out to the Klenia Mycenae stage (SS7). But the five-time World Champions suffered an accident halfway through the test.

"We were on a very fast part of the stage, on a plateau," explained Sébastien. "There was a right-hand corner, that I perhaps took a little too quickly. I was off-line for the left-hander that followed and I hit a big rock at the apex. The front wheel was ripped off and it sent us into a series of barrel rolls. The car is too badly damaged for the team to repair it in time for the final day.

In any case, the C4 WRC showed how tough a car it is because we don’t have a single scratch on us after a pretty dramatic crash. Clearly, it’s not a good result in terms of the championships because it will cost us a large portion of our points advantage. But whatever happens, we’ll still be in the lead tomorrow evening, and that’s the main thing.”

Starting just three seconds behind Mikko Hirvonen, Dani Sordo and Marc Marti took a cautious approach at the start of the day. Basing their pace on that of the leaders, the crew of the N°2 C4 WRC was nevertheless caught out on Kefalari (SS9). "We broke a suspension arm on a rock. It happened four kilometres in, in a very slow right-hand corner. The rock was hidden in the grass and I hadn’t seen it during the recce," explained Dani.

"I’m really disappointed because everything was in place to take our first win in the World Championship. The team will repair the car so I can restart tomorrow under the SupeRally ruling. We can still score some useful points for Citroën in the Manufacturers' championship."

Provisional final leaderboard
1. Hirvonen/Lehtinen                    Ford Focus            4h09’42’’5
2. Ogier/Ingrassia                        Citroën C4           +1’12’’9
3. Latvala/Antilla                          Ford Focus          +1’45’’0
4. Villagra/Diaz                            Ford Focus          + 3’48’’3
5. Rautenbach/Barritt                   Citroën C4            +3’59’’8
6. Al Qassimi/Orr                         Ford Focus          +7’04’’3
7. Ostberg/Andersson                  Subaru Impreza    +12’24’’9
8. Athanassoulas/Zakheos           Skoda Fabia         +12’47’’6
9. Al Attiyah/Bernacchini              Subaru Impreza    +13’09’’9
10. Araujo/Ramalho                     Mitsubishi Lancer  +15’04’’5
11. Arai/Mac Neall                       Subaru Impreza    +16’02’’5
12. Sordo / Marti                         Citroën C4            +18’41’’0