The Acropolis Rally week has begun with the special stages’ reconnaissance, enduring for three days.
The first day (Monday 2 September) consisted of the special stages Rengini (28,67 km), Thiva (20,95 km), Aghii Theodoroi (25,87 km), Loutraki (12,90 km) and the Super Special Stage (1,97 km). The second day (Tuesday 3 September), the procedure was continued at the Shakedown (3,62 km), before crews heading to stages Eleftherohori (18,29 km), Ano Pavliani (22,47 km) and Inohori (17,47 km). The epilogue was written during Wednesday 4 September, with special stages Tarzan (23,37 km) and Dafni (21,67 km).
In general, the special stages were characterized as very rough and the same impression was made by the Traction Rally Team crew, which is preparing for a particularly difficult rally, where survival will be the key to success.
Manos and Kostas Stefanis will compete in the 10th round of this year’s WRC with No.55 on the doors of the Ford Fiesta Rally3 prepared and technically supported by M-Sport Poland, while in addition to the overall classification they will also be part of WRC3, World Championship for cars of such category.
With the motto “49 years rocks & dust”, Kostas Stefanis will be at the start of the most famous Greek rally for the 30th time in 49 years, a statistic that makes him one of the two competitors with the longest running time in WRC* history. At the same time, this will be Manos Stefanis’ 4th appearance in the Acropolis Rally.
The schedule of Thursday 5 September begins with the morning shakedown close to host city Lamia and ends with the Ceremonial Start, at 19:00.
The purely sporting part of the event will be held in 6-8 September, consisting of 15 special stages with total length of 305,30 kilometers.
The participation of Manos and Kostas Stefanis is sponsored by Coral S.A. – Shell Licensee.
*Statistical data from www.ewrc-results.com/
Quotes
Manos Stefanis: “Acropolis Rally recce was a tiring three-day process, as we had to cover a lot of kilometres. Although the special stages are more or less known, the notable difference this year lies in their degree of roughness, which is higher than in previous years. In several places there are already a lot of stones on the road, so we are sure that during the rally, when there will be preceding passes of very strong Rally1 and Rally2 cars, the situation will be even more difficult. In any case, we know that endurance and reliability will be more important than absolute speed, so our main concern will be to protect the car in order to reach the finish.”
Kostas Stefanis: “I dare to say that this year’s event reminds me of the Acropolis of the 70’s in terms of the surface roughness. With these unprecedented conditions during “modern times”, we will be called upon to formulate a tactic with reliability being our main concern. This becomes all the more imperative since the roads will be ‘broken up’ after the passing of the cars in front of us, so we will often have to deal with “stone avoidance” rather than absolute speed. We are well prepared and hopefully this will allow us to deal properly with any difficulties that may arise. After all, this is the Acropolis Rally and this is its sporting personality that I have adored for decades.”
Pre–Event Test Video
