Martin Leads After Bruising First Day
(06 Jun 03)

Leg Two Round-Up   Leg Three Round-Up

The Acropolis Rally has the reputation of being the roughest and dustiest event in the FIA World Rally Championship calendar, but it doesn't usually provoke quite so many first-day retirements from the works teams as it did this year.

Ford led right from the start, but not always with the same car. François Duval and Markko Martin made it a Focus one-two on the opening stage, but Martin moved ahead on SS2. He and Duval held off the opposition until SS5, at 34.68km the longest stage of the day.

Duval slid off into a deep ditch there and retired, while Martin (pictured here and above) made fourth-best time despite having his bonnet fly open and crack the windscreen. Not only that, but the bonnet stayed up, and he spent more than half the stage looking at the road ahead through the gap between it and the bottom of the screen. To keep his overall lead in those circumstances was remarkable, and he held it to the end of the day.

Of the other official Ford entries, Mikko Hirvonen retired on SS6 with a torn-off rear wheel, but 18 year-old Jari-Matti Latvala, by a long way the youngest works-team driver ever to have contested a WRC event, is 12th overnight.

After the first two stages Harri Rovanpera, who had the advantage of starting eleventh on the road with ten other cars clearing the loose top surface for him, had three straight wins in a row. He observed that: "Maybe I started off a little too carefully, but this rally is long and tough. There is no point in taking too many risks too early."

Rovanpera (pictured) closed on Martin, getting to within 4.8s at the end of SS7, the last "real" stage of the day before the short spectator special at Lilea-Parnassos, but when SS8 was cancelled because of impossibly dusty conditions that was as far as he got.

Team-mate Marcus Gronholm, who'd spun on SS4 and was lying third behind Rovanpera as drivers left the cancelled SS8 on their way to the day's final service point, retired on the road section when his car lost all fuel pressure, despite there being petrol in the tank.

With a big turnout of works and Bozian Racing 206s on the rally, Peugeot still managed an overnight sixth with Gilles Panizzi, ninth with Richard Burns and eleventh with Roman Kresta.

Championship leader Burns had a tough day. Running first on the road meant that he was "sweeper" on the most frustrating European event in the series for that kind of work. He also lost third gear on the middle loop of stages, dropping more time:

"However, there's an extremely long way to go, and we've seen already that anything can happen. I'll have a better road position on Saturday, and things are far from over."

Subaru was pretty well in touch most of the day, although Petter Solberg (pictured), on SS6 - the second run over the SS1 route, with a cleaner surface - recorded its only stage win. He lost time with a couple of stalls on hairpins, but is third overnight and just 19.1s off the lead.

Team-mate Tommi Makinen was happier with the handling of his car, after some set-up changes, over the last two Friday stages. He was always close to the action, and finished the day in fifth place, just 0.3s behind Carlos Sainz's Citroen (pictured).

Sainz himself was the only Citroen works driver not to have major dramas. Sébastien Loeb's Xsara went out with engine failure on the very first stage, while Colin McRae's car was reluctant to fire up for the start of SS2, and he took 50s in road penalties. He's seventh overnight, but without that penalty would have been a very close third.

In one of the last rallies for the works Skoda Octavia, Didier Auriol finished the opening day in eighth place. However, Toni Gardmeister was slowed first of all by steering problems, and after they were repaired had the turbo go on SS5. He retired on the next road section with a loss of oil pressure.

Hyundai had a desperate first day. Armin Schwarz's Accent retired with a broken cambelt on SS1, where team-mate Freddy Loix had to stop mid-stage to put out a fire caused by leaking suspension oil. He retired on the next stage with further suspension damage.

Manfred Stohl's privately entered Hyundai has climbed to tenth, at least giving Hyundai a place on the leader board.

The Acropolis is a pretty forbidding event for the Super 1600 cars, but they're having their usual good scrap. Joint Junior Championship leader Brice Tirabassi leads the class in his Renault Clio, but second place is held by the non-Championship entrant Simon Jean-Joseph in a similar car. He doesn't, of course, count for Junior points.

The latest Suzuki Ignis cars are showing well, with Daniel Carlsson second Junior runner and Urmo Aava fourth. They're separated by the other joint Championship leader Kosti Katajamaki in a Volkswagen Polo.

So the first day finished with Martin in the lead from Rovanpera, Solberg, Sainz, Makinen, Panizzi, McRae, Auriol, Burns and Stohl. Some of them will be relieved that the first fifteen overall tackle the Saturday stages in reverse running order.

Leg Two Round-Up   Leg Three Round-Up

2003 World Rally Championship Standings
2003 World Rally Championship Calendar
Back to Sport index