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Sirmacis on course for dream ERC Acropolis Rally victory

Ralfs Sirmacis leads by over a minute with three stages remaining on the SEAJETS Acropolis Rally, on course for victory on his first start at the top level of the FIA European Rally Championship.

The 21-year-old Latvian, competing an R5 car for the first time after stepping up from ERC Junior, started the day two seconds behind Alexey Lukyanuk after the Russian had a penalty withdrawn late last night, but immediately regained the lead on the first stage of the day when the Russian suffered a puncture. He stretched that to 20 seconds on SS8, then inherited a larger margin when Lukyanuk lost 17 minutes on the mammoth SS9 fixing a broken suspension arm.

Greek hero Lambros Athanassoulas has been a charge, turning a 19.5s deficit to Jaromír Tarabus into a 35.7s advantage over the course of the three stages, and inheriting second when Lukyanuk hit trouble.

Raul Jeets, team-mate to Sirmacis in the ŠKODA Fabia R5-backed Sports Racing Technologies team, has continued his consistent run and is up to fourth. Jarosław Kołtun began the day just two seconds behind the Estonian, but lost half a minute to a puncture on SS7. He's cut that to 19.3s ahead of the afternoon loop.

ERC2 leader Wojciech Chuchała is up to sixth, now 1m43.1s ahead of class rival Péter Ranga. Tomasz Kasperczyk is 43s behind Ranga in eighth.

After losing 15 minutes when he rolled on SS1, Kajetan Kajetanowicz won all three stages during the morning to climb from 23rd to 11th, just 38.9s behind Tibor Érdi Jr and some crucial points.

Lukyanuk is 14th, one spot ahead of Dávid Botka, who returned to action after his mechanical issue on day one. Federico Della Casa also restarted but retired again after the first stage of the day.

Zdroj: fiaerc.com