SS15: Loeb drops time as rain falls

The drama continues on the Acropolis Rally with rain falling on stage 15. Sebastien Loeb, the event leader, reported rain falling as he started the run and then intensifying as he approached the rocky downhill section.

“We had a lot of rain in the stage and it was very slippery on the wet stones in the downhill,” said the Citroen driver, who has won the FIA World Rally Championship powered by Nokia for the last eight seasons. “For sure it was so rough that I did not take any big risks. I’m still leading so we’ll see.”

Petter Solberg was fastest through the stage by a margin of 6.4s over Loeb in his factory Ford Fiesta to trim Loeb’s advantage out front to 15.5s. Nevertheless the Norwegian insists he won’t be taking any risks in his pursuit of victory.

“This is the worst stage of the whole rally, it’s unbelievable,” said Solberg. “I raised the car very high just before the start not thinking about performance but just surviving. There is no point trying to push, trying to be a hero. It’s difficult to gain time when you are second. It’s so important for the championship that I have to be clever. Let’s see what happens to Loeb.”

Sebastien Ogier tackled the entire stage with no working powersteering on his Volkswagen Motorsport-run Skoda Fabia S2000. He told WRC Live that his arms were “completely destroyed” at the stage finish. He slips behind team-mate Andreas Mikkelsen to ninth overall.

Jari-Matti Latvala is competing with no right-rear brake on his Fiesta as a result of the wheel damage incurred on the previous stage when he dropped out of the lead battle. The Finn was eighth quickest in his Fiesta.

Armindo Araujo started the stage with a bent compression strut but failed to get to the end when a wheel came off. Nasser Al-Attiyah failed to start the stage due to the driveshaft failure he suffered on stage 14.