The 2004 Acropolis Rally marked the very first WRC event to use the superally regulation
Photography by Girardo & Co. Archive
Words by Luke Barry
There have been many seminal moments in the World Rally Championship.
Audi’s four-wheel-drive revolution, the rise (and fall) of Group B and Frenchmen named Sébastien all spring to mind.
But would you believe the 2004 Acropolis Rally was just as important as any of them?
The answer doesn’t lie in the rally result per se (as impressive a win as it was for Petter Solberg), but rather the regulations. This was the very first rally in WRC history to adopt the superally rules.
Prior to 2004’s voyage to Greece, retiring from a leg on a rally meant you were retiring from the entire event. In the 20+ years since, the opportunity has existed to restart the following day and attempt to salvage a result and the associated championship points.
That’s not quite how the system debuted, with those restarting under superally officially not classified in the results. That tweak would come later for 2006, where Sébastien Loeb immediately used it to his advantage to fight back from a day one off to an incredible second place in Monte Carlo.
But Markko Märtin, Armin Schwarz, Dani Solà and Toni Gardemeister can consider themselves trailblazers as the first drivers to make use of the regulations that are now commonplace in the WRC.
Now we’ve acknowledged the historical impact, shall we examine the other events of the 2004 Acropolis Rally?
Go on then, you’ve twisted my arm.
Peugeot team principal Corrado Provera delivered a legendary press conference in Greece 21 years ago
Three weeks prior to Greece, Marcus Grönholm had thought he’d delivered Peugeot’s 307 WRC its first victory in Cyprus.
But the FIA excluded both Grönholm and team-mate Harri Rovanperä’s cars for carrying an illegal water pump.
Not one to shy away from his feelings, Peugeot boss Corrado Provera called a press conference in Greece claiming the parts were indeed legal. The team opted not to appeal, but the late Italian’s words in said presser have gone down in folklore.
“What’s the spirit in which are we now? Are we depressed? Are we sad? Are we empty? No. We are disgusted,” he said.
Picking up his notepad as if to make a point, and then deciding to put it back down, he added: “Will we give up? Never.”
And out he walked.
Sadly for Peugeot there wouldn’t be redemption in Greece, certainly as far as Grönholm was concerned. The double champion retired on Saturday after breaking his suspension and then losing drive.
M-Sport and Ford had flown on the Acropolis... until 2004
Things weren’t much rosier in one of the service park’s blue corners.
Ford had won every single Acropolis Rally of the 21st century prior to 2004 – three of those courtesy of Colin McRae before Markko Märtin picked up the mantle in 2003 for his maiden WRC win.
But the Estonian wouldn’t make it beyond SS3 in 2004 when he slid off the road and got his Focus RS WRC stuck. He would of course return under superally rules for the previous two days.
Team-mate François Duval did far better, finishing fourth, but there was drama for future Ford driver Roman Kresta who – blinded by the hanging dust – collided with Dani Solà’s stricken Mitsubishi in one of the WRC’s more bizarre incidents.
Škoda was one of the first teams to utilise the Superally concept when it made its debut on the Acropolis
After sitting out the opening five rounds of the season, the Acropolis marked Škoda’s return to the championship in 2004.
In what would eventually be a seven-round campaign (out of 16) for the squad which was seeking to improve its Fabia WRC, Armin Schwarz and Toni Gardemeister were entered into Greece but neither driver managed to finish.
Officially, anyway.
Schwarz parked up on the third stage with suspension damage, but did at least return for the next two legs to bank valuable testing mileage.
Gardemeister’s exit (a fire on Friday’s final test) was more galling as he had been running as high as sixth, but he too got back out to put more miles on the updated Fabia.
Nick Fry saw the funny side of Subaru's penalty for not running mudflaps
Amidst all the chaos, one man drove off into the sunset.
After taking the rally lead on SS4, Petter Solberg didn’t look back. The Norwegian was revelling in his Subaru and reeled off stage win after stage win to establish a lead of just under a minute at the end of the first day.
From there he just had to manage it, and the reigning world champion was thrown two curveballs.
The first was when his Impreza lost brakes, but more bizarrely his Subaru mechanics forgot to attach rear mudflaps for a loop of stages and that led to a 30s time penalty.
A clearly amused Solberg said: “It’s actually a big laugh, but the decision has been made. They’re going to have to speed up if they’re going to try to beat me now…”
With the penalty applied, Solberg’s lead was cut to 28.5s – but that was more than enough as he secured his second win of the season and moved to five points off Loeb’s series lead.
Loeb's final-day speed was enough for him to power past Rovanperä (the older version) for second place
Grönholm had actually assumed the championship lead before he was disqualified from Cyprus, which then gave Loeb the lead by just a solitary point over Märtin.
Second place in Greece allowed Loeb to pull clear, as Solberg jumped up to second with Märtin’s non-score.
It wasn’t an easy rally for the Citroën star who faced the handicap of running first on the road on Friday – leaving him just 13th after stage two!
But Loeb soon began to pick up the pace, and four stage wins from six on the final day was too much for Peugeot’s Harri Rovanperä to handle as he lost second place to his rival.
In the end, Loeb finished 18.4s behind Solberg and 9.9s clear of Rovanperä.
Words:Luke Barry
Tags: Acropolis Rally Greece 2004, Corrado Provera, Marcus Grönholm, Markko Märtin, Petter Solberg, Sebastien Loeb, superally, WRC, WRC 2004
Publish Date June 24, 2025 DirtFish 
https://dirtfish-editorial.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/2025/06/3O21kq6a-Girardo_Co._Archive_18835-780x522.jpg June 24, 2025
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