Round 8: 53th Acropolis Rally 2006

Pictures of the Acropolis Rally 2006 here.

It was another day of scorching temperatures on the Greek roads around Athens on the final leg of the Acropolis Rally. Four of today’s five stages were among the toughest on the whole route, with all the Avonlas test and parts of Agia Sotira being driven four times during the event. Despite the enormous strain being put on man and machine, Gabriel Pozzo and Mirco Baldacci maintained a fantastic challenge for victory in this round of the FIA Production Car World Rally Championship. In the end, the Argentine driver was second behind Al-Attiyah . having led for most of the first two days . and San Marino’s Baldacci was fourth. Baldacci, and co-driver Giovanni Agnese, began the day more than two minutes off the leader. The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX crew halved that difference in the morning. This left them under a minute behind with just the final loop of stages remaining. Sunday afternoon comprised a re-run of the morning stages, with a classic finale in the Olympic Stadium. Unfortunately for Baldacci, he suffered a front puncture with two stages remaining, and was then held up in the dust of a slower competitor in the final test. He slipped back behind Pozzo, but was then dropped down a further place when the stewards levied a five-minute penalty on him for running without a rear bumper on the final three stages of today. Despite being downhearted about dropping back from the lead yesterday, Pozzo continued to push through the final leg. He was never out of the top three fastest times among the Group N cars. His efforts paid off as he closed to just 11 seconds of the leader with just the superspecial remaining. Unfortunately, he couldn’t manage to overcome that deficit and ended as runner-up. "It’s been a very tough rally," said Pozzo at the finish. "Really, a typical Acropolis. Again, it was good to see that we had enough speed to lead the rally, but it’s disappointing that we didn’t manage to win. To come back to second place was good, though, it means I have some good points in the championship." Finland’s Jussi Valimaki maintained Mitsubishi’s presence at the sharp end of the World Rally Championship, bringing home a Lancer WRC05 to a fine ninth position . just two weeks after he collected fifth place on Rally Italia. Valimaki admitted the final day had been just as tough as the two days which had gone before it. "The dust was so bad in the first stage this morning," he said. "And the road was really rough. Still, I am not sure how hard to push in the very rough places. The car can take the punishment, but I am always thinking it might be too much. I missed one junction in the first stage and had to reverse. We didn’t lose too much time. Again, the car worked well throughout the day, it hasn’t given us any problems at all." Ford driver Marcus Gronholm remained in control of the event and collected his third win of the season, with championship leader Sebastien Loeb second and Mikko Hirvonen third.

PWRC FINAL CLASSIFICATION
Pos	Driver Co-Driver	Vehicle	Total Time	Diff Leader
1	Nasser Al-Attiyah Chris Patterson	Subaru Impreza	4:28:43.3	**:**.*
2	Gabriel Pozzo Daniel Stillo	Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX	4:28:55.3	+12.0
3	Aki Teiskonen Miika Teiskonen	Subaru Impreza WRX Sti	4:29:13.7	+30.4
4	Mirco Baldacci Giovanni Agnese	Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX	4:32:37.4	+3:54.1
5	Arai Toshi Tony Sircombe	Subaru Impreza STI	4:33:37.7	+4:54.4
6	Jari-Matti Latvala Miikka Anttila	Subaru Impreza WRX Sti	4:36:11.2	+7:27.9
7	Marcos Ligato Ruben Garcia	Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX	4:41:48.2	+13:04.9
8	Stefano Marrini Tiziana Sandroni	Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VII	4:44:58.3	+16:15.0
9	Sergey Uspenskiy Dmitry Eremeev	Subaru Impreza STI	4:49:35.8	+20:52.5
10	Sebastian Beltran Ricardo Rojas	Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX	4:52:02.5	+23:19.2
11	Nigel Heath Steve Lancaster	Subaru Impreza	4:58:07.0	+29:23.7
12	Kamada Takuma Ichino. Hakaru	Subaru Impreza	5:03:11.2	+34:27.9
13	Andrej Jereb Sebastian Itu	Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII	5:10:08.6	+41:25.3
14	Dimitris Nassoulas Mihalis Patrikoussis	Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII	5:21:50.1	+53:06.8

OVERALL FINAL CLASSIFICATION
Pos	Driver Co-Driver	Vehicle	Grp Pos	Total Time	Diff Leader
1 M1	Marcus Gronholm Timo Rautiainen	Ford Focus RS WRC 06	A 1	3:56:26.8	**:**.*
2 M1	Sebastien Loeb Daniel Elena	Citroen Xsara WRC	A 2	3:58:53.6	+2:26.8
3 M1	Mikko Hirvonen Jarmo Lehtinen	Ford Focus RS WRC 06	A 3	4:00:10.6	+3:43.8
4	Toni Gardemeister Jakke Honkanen	Citroen Xsara	A 4	4:00:47.6	+4:20.8
5 M2	Henning Solberg Cato Menkerud	Peugeot 307 WRC	A 5	4:01:22.4	+4:55.6
6	Daniel Sordo Marc Marti	Citroen Xsara	A 6	4:01:23.2	+4:56.4
7 M1	Petter Solberg Phil Mills	Subaru Impreza WRC 2006	A 7	4:02:01.2	+5:34.4
8 M1	Xavier Pons Carlos Del Barrio	Citroen Xsara WRC	A 8	4:04:45.8	+8:19.0
9	Jussi Valimaki Jarko Kalliolepo	Mitsubishi Lancer WRC	A 9	4:07:55.5	+11:28.7
10 M2	Matthew Wilson Michael Orr	Ford Focus RS WRC 04	A 10	4:09:57.6	+13:30.8
11 M1	Chris Atkinson Glenn Macneall	Subaru Impreza WRC 2006	A 11	4:10:28.6	+14:01.8
12 M2	Harri Rovanpera Risto Pietilainen	Skoda Fabia WRC	A 12	4:11:02.4	+14:35.6
13	Francois Duval Patrick Privato	Skoda Fabia WRC	A 13	4:14:31.2	+18:04.4
14 M2	Andreas Aigner Timo Gottschalk	Skoda Fabia WRC	A 14	4:17:17.7	+20:50.9
15	Aris Vovos El Em	Subaru Impreza WRC 05	A 15	4:23:17.1	+26:50.3
16	Jan Kopecky Filip Schovanek	Skoda Fabia WRC	A 16	4:24:45.6	+28:18.8
17 P	Nasser Al-Attiyah Chris Patterson	Subaru Impreza	N 1	4:28:43.3	+32:16.5
18 P	Gabriel Pozzo Daniel Stillo	Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX	N 2	4:28:55.3	+32:28.5
19 P	Aki Teiskonen Miika Teiskonen	Subaru Impreza WRX Sti	N 3	4:29:13.7	+32:46.9
20 P	Mirco Baldacci Giovanni Agnese	Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX	N 4	4:32:37.4	+36:10.6
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24 P	Marcos Ligato Ruben Garcia	Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX	N 8	4:41:48.2	+45:21.4
25	Knostantinos Pitsos Stelios-Jason Karapapazis	Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII	N 9	4:42:24.9	+45:58.1
27 P	Stefano Marrini Tiziana Sandroni	Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VII	N 10	4:44:58.3	+48:31.5
30 P	Sebastian Beltran Ricardo Rojas	Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX	N 12	4:52:02.5	+55:35.7
35	Trofonios Alexandros Paleologos	Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII	N 17	5:09:48.8	+1:13:22.0
36	George Klouvatos Andreas Vlahogenis	Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII	N 18	5:10:02.2	+1:13:35.4
37 P	Andrej Jereb Sebastian Itu	Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII	N 19	5:10:08.6	+1:13:41.8
39	Andreas krattiger Ennio Carnelos	Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII	N 20	5:11:30.1	+1:15:03.3
40	Pavlos Moshoutis George Kairis	Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX	N 21	5:11:36.1	+1:15:09.3
43	Dimitris Psylos Konstantinos Kondos	Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII	N 24	5:19:55.6	+1:23:28.8
44 P	Dimitris Nassoulas Mihalis Patrikoussis	Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII	N 25	5:21:50.1	+1:25:23.3
49	Dionissis Gazetas Athanasios Papageorgiou	Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII	A 22	5:38:38.9	+1:42:12.1
50	Athanassios Tsilis  Kas	Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI	N 28	5:43:41.3	+1:47:14.5
53	Panos  Vas	Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII	N 29	5:51:56.4	+1:55:29.6
55	Junior Kirkos Ioannis Sengos	Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII	N 31	5:55:23.1	+1:58:56.3
M1 = FIA WRC MANUFACTURERS 1 / M2 = FIA WRC MANUFACTURERS 2 P = FIA PWRC

(by mitsubishi-motors.com)