The Acropolis Rally once again lived up to its fearsome reputation. Four demanding days in the Greek heat, on rough and rocky gravel roads, produced plenty of drama and unexpected twists. After all the late developments, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT2 crew Sami Pajari and Marko Salminen ultimately finished fourth overall.
The rally began with a spectator stage on asphalt on the outskirts of Athens, meaning it was still too early to draw any major conclusions about the pace of the drivers and teams. However, one opinion was shared by almost everyone – it was great to perform in front of such a large crowd. Pajari and Salminen set the fourth-fastest time, just 1.2 seconds off the benchmark.
The next chapter was perhaps the most unique feature of this year’s rally. After the opening stage, competitors travelled from Athens to the rally headquarters in Loutraki, where, following a short evening service, both crews and cars boarded a ferry for an overnight crossing of the Gulf of Corinth to Itea.
Friday, the longest day of the rally in terms of competitive kilometres, featured six demanding stages in Central Greece. Drama began immediately on the opening test as both Oliver Solberg and Martins Sesks suffered punctures. Sesks’ puncture came near the finish and therefore cost relatively little time, whereas Solberg lost around one and a half minutes. Running fourth on the road, Pajari set the fifth-fastest time, 6.4 seconds behind the stage winner.
“The road is cleaning up a lot. It’s difficult for us to judge where there’s already grip and where it’s still slippery. It’s a long rally ahead, we’ll do our best,” Pajari said after Friday’s opening stage.
On the second stage, it was Dani Sordo’s turn to suffer a puncture, allowing Pajari to move from fifth to fourth overall. Before the remote service in Livadia, crews still had to tackle the 24-kilometre Stiri stage.
Halfway through the stage, an unusual incident took place. After a particularly rough section, TV cameras caught Pajari saying, “I need to do one thing,” before immediately bringing the car to a stop. By the time the camera angle changed, all that could be seen was the driver fastening his lap belts back into the buckle, although the exact reason for the stop has never been fully explained. Co-driver Marko Salminen also appeared momentarily puzzled by what had happened. Despite the unexpected interruption, the stop lasted just over 15 seconds according to the split times, making it remarkably brief under the circumstances. Nevertheless, the pair lost more than 32 seconds to the stage-winning time, dropping from fourth to seventh overall.
Following the remote service, the fourth stage of the day brought further misfortune as Pajari and Salminen suffered a puncture early in the stage. The left-rear tyre was changed quickly, but the stop still cost the crew more than a minute and a half. They fell to 15th overall, more than two and a half minutes behind the leaders, leaving the remainder of the afternoon focused primarily on avoiding further punctures.
By the end of Friday, Pajari and Salminen had climbed back to tenth overall.
“We had some nice stages during the morning loop and I think that our pace was quite decent considering our road position. I felt that we were doing quite an OK job while trying to avoid any issues, but unfortunately the issues still came our way and in total we lost around two minutes. It means we are realistically out of the fight for the win, but there’s still two long days to go. Anything can happen and we just need to keep going.”
Saturday’s six stages were held west of Loutraki on the Peloponnese peninsula. After Friday’s setbacks, Pajari once again started fourth on the road, with particular attention focused on the times of Dani Sordo, who held a 24-second advantage in the overall standings. Four stages were completed before crews returned to Loutraki for midday service.
The opening two stages did not go Pajari’s way, and on the third stage he spun, although despite the mistake he lost only one second to Sordo. On the pre-service Kefalari stage, however, Pajari fought back strongly, taking 11.9 seconds out of the Spaniard’s advantage. At the midday service, the gap had been reduced to 16.9 seconds, with Pajari sitting ninth overall.
After service, the opening Ghymnon stage was repeated in a shortened form, with approximately 4.5 kilometres removed due to the road conditions. Sordo extended his advantage by a few seconds, but on the day’s final stage it was the Spaniard’s turn to suffer a puncture, as happened to several other crews. Pajari avoided trouble this time and climbed to sixth overall.
“I think there was not so much more that we could have done today. On some stages we had quite solid pace, on others maybe not, but I think this was mainly down to the conditions because our road position was not great after yesterday’s troubles. We were able to gain a few places after issues for other drivers, and that also makes our road position better, so I think that gives us a chance to try and take a few more points tomorrow.”
Sunday featured two stages run twice to the east of Loutraki. Elfyn Evans, who had started the day only a few seconds behind Pajari, suffered a puncture on the opening stage, while Adrien Fourmaux encountered problems on the next test. By the midday service, Pajari had secured fifth place quite comfortably, trailing fourth-placed Josh McErlean by around one minute while also holding second place in the Super Sunday classification behind Sébastien Ogier.
Pajari’s pace continued to improve as the rally progressed. On the second pass through Aghii Theodori, he set the second-fastest time while McErlean briefly ran off the road, losing significant time. Ahead of the rally-ending Loutraki Power Stage, the gap had been cut to just 14 seconds.
Pajari pushed flat out on the final stage, but ultimately McErlean remained 6.7 seconds ahead overall, leaving the Finn fifth at the finish.
“I was hoping to catch Josh, but also congrats to him for his best result so far. I gave it all I got. The beginning of the rally was tricky and also tricky to recover from that. It’s really rough, but I think it’s not different if you go 100% or 90% because still something can happen.”, said Pajari right after the last special stage.
A little later, the Finn reflected further on the demanding weekend.
“It was a proper Super Sunday for us today and I think we need to be really happy about that. The beginning of the rally was very difficult for us and it was tricky to recover from that, but I think that we got the most out of it that we could. We managed to make up quite a lot of positions and also take eight extra points from Sunday, so it’s really not been too bad an event in the end and we’re still in a good position in the championship with some nice rallies to come for us.”
Some time after the finish, the final results changed once again. The crews of Josh McErlean and Adrien Fourmaux were both handed one-minute time penalties for their cars moving on special stages while seat belts were not correctly fastened. In McErlean’s case, the issue concerned co-driver Eoin Treacy’s belts following their off-road excursion on the penultimate stage. Fourmaux’s penalty related to co-driver Alexandre Coria’s belts after a wheel change on Stage 12. As a result, Pajari was promoted from fifth to fourth overall, while championship leader Elfyn Evans moved up from seventh to fifth.