SS7: Drama for M-Sport duo

M-Sport Ford drivers Evgeny Novikov and Ott Tanak both lost ground on stage seven of the Acropolis Rally, as Ford World Rally Team man Jari-Matti Latvala trimmed a little out of Sebastien Loeb’s overall lead.

Tanak’s delay was the most costly, as he went off the road and damaged his Ford Fiesta RS WRC. The Estonian had been running seventh, but lost over eight minutes in the incident.

"We made a correction on the pacenotes durng the previous [running of the stage] and we made it to the wrong place, the corner before, and we were too fast," Tanak confessed. "We went off and came back on, but we got a puncture, and then bent the suspension."

Novikov dropped just over a minute with a mechanical issue, dropping from fifth to seventh, behind Mads Ostberg (Adapta Ford) and Thierry Neuville (Citroen Junior).

"We had a problem with the engine. It’s not a misfire, maybe something with the turbo, I don’t know," said Novikov.

Up front, Latvala took the stage win by 0.7s from Loeb, bringing the gap to the Citroen down to 9.4s.

"Okay, there is quite a distance to Loeb, but now we are going in the right way," said Latvala, who was happier with his car’s behaviour after changes at service.

Loeb had finished the stage close behind the delayed Novikov and Tanak, but said it had not cost him any time.

"It was okay, I saw a little bit of dust. I heard Tanak had stopped, so I was thinking he had started just before me," said Loeb. "I didn’t lose any time with it."

Just behind the lead battle, Petter Solberg’s repaired Ford was slighlty quicker than Mikko Hirvonen’s Citroen, leaving them a second apart in the fight for third. Solberg said fixing the damage from his stage six impact had not been too difficult after all, even with the limitations of remote service.

"The impact knocked the rear diff up into the subframe and the propshaft was touching the subframe," Solberg explained.

"We’d lost some bolts but the boys fixed it and we got a spacer in to put some space between the subframe and the diff. None of this was a problem but if we hadn’t put the spacer in, it might’ve been."