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| Ford factory driver Jari-Matti Latvala leads after the first day of the four-day Acropolis Rally in Greece. |
Jari-Matti Latvala has made a sensational return to the World Rally
Championship, posting the fastest first-stage time of the Acropolis
Rally, the 25.24-kilometer Kineta test. This was the only speed test to
be held on Thursday night, before the all-gravel rally resumes in Greece
on Friday.
The factory Ford driver, who missed the last round in
Argentina because of a broken collarbone, edged Citroën's Sébastien Loeb
by 2.8 seconds with Mikko Hirvonen third quickest and Mads Ostberg
fourth fastest. “I was very equal with Loeb but at the end I seemed to
pull out some time at the hairpins,” said Latvala. “I felt really fast
in places.”
Loeb said: “In some places there is a lot of grip,
some places no grip so it is difficult to understand where you can push
and where you have to be careful.”
It was a frustrating start to
the Greek round for former winner Petter Solberg who blamed his failure
to win the stage on his decision to run soft compound tires on his
factory Fiesta rather than the hard option chosen by his rivals. The
Norwegian's tires had lost considerable grip by the end of the run,
which he completed with the fifth fastest time, 14.6 seconds slower than
Latvala.
“It was my decision and I believed in it,” said Solberg.
“I thought it could have been colder, it was just a mistake and I
should have listened to the team. Okay that's how it is and we learn
from that. We are not out of it.”
Evgeny Novikov said he wasn't
entirely happy with his driving in his M-Sport Fiesta after the Russian
admitted to making a few mistakes on his run to the sixth-best time.
Ott
Tanak, who damaged his Fiesta's front-right steering arm while hitting a
small tree during the qualifying stage Thursday morning, spun near the
stage start but still managed the seventh-fastest time.
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