Wilson not giving up hope of Acropolis success

Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team head Malcolm Wilson is refusing to give up hope that Mikko Hirvonen can win the Acropolis Rally.

Hirvonen, 30, will start the final three stages in Greece 14.7s behind world championship rival Sebastien Loeb, who holds a 0.1s margin over second-placed Citroen team-mate Sebastien Ogier.

“We’re certainly not going to give up and we’ll keep the pressure on,” said the British team boss, whose squad was victorious the last time the WRC visited Greece in 2009. “Mikko was probably a little too far behind yesterday but he’s put himself back into the fray this morning and there’s always a chance that something could happen to the two Sebastiens.”

Wilson said his team of engineers would also be playing their part to boost Hirvonen’s chances of claiming his second Acropolis Rally victory.

“We’ll be optimising the weight of our cars for the conditions [on the remaining stages],” said Wilson. “There is a lot of pressure on our engineers in this situation as we’ll be looking for every ounce of performance.”

The Ford team was boosted this morning when Hirvonen’s team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala went fastest on stages 14 and 15 to move into ninth place in the overall classification.