The season is now 50% complete, and Greece taught us plenty about the balance in the world championship
Photography by Toyota, Hyundai & M-Sport
Words by Luke Barry
Six-one is not a scoreline Hyundai Motorsport will want to boast about, but it’s a lot better than seven-nil.
At last, Hyundai (and Ott Tänak) took victory at a round of this year’s World Rally Championship after threatening to do so on both of the most recent rallies prior.
Acropolis Rally Greece taught us plenty – not least about the ever-evolving shape of this year’s battle in the world drivers’ championship.
Another multiple-minute deficit to the winner doesn’t scream championship-winning form, but consistently banking good points scores does.
All Evans needed to do across Portugal, Sardinia and Greece was be consistent, stay out of trouble and maintain his championship lead. That’s exactly what he’s done.
Road cleaning should become less of a burden for Estonia and Finland (if he’s still leading the championship there) but equally Evans is the first to admit he’ll also need to drive faster too to cement his position as the hunted.
Regardless, to be leading the championship at the halfway point is an important milestone – even if one of his rivals is hitting ominously good form…
Were it not for that gearbox problem that suddenly made a stress-free weekend stressful right at the death, Ott Tänak would probably be second in the world championship and just seven points shy of Evans.
As it is, third place and 12 points adrift is hardly a galaxy away. Particularly when you consider the Estonian’s form right now.
OK, Sébastien Ogier has outscored him (by two points) over the last three gravel rounds – but we aren’t supposed to be considering him as a title contender. That makes Tänak Evans’ biggest threat by far right now.
Evans does have a strong record in Finland especially – but so does Tänak. If the revised i20 N Rally1 works as is hoped (with faster, soft-surface rallies like Estonia/Finland where the team really wanted to improve) that might just be enough to make Tänak the championship favorite.
Kalle Rovanperä and Thierry Neuville certainly aren’t the favorites. Despite being the only two to have won the Acropolis since its WRC return in 2021, neither jetted out of Athens with a smile on their face this year.
The pair have different reasons to be concerned after Greece. For Rovanperä, this was a worrying dip after a couple of encouraging events in Portugal and Sardinia that built some momentum behind his challenge.
For Neuville, the performance was strong but fortune deserted him. He outscored Rovanperä at the weekend, but yet again he lost ground to Evans. Rovanperä isn’t close but is in touch with a 33-point handicap; Neuville is a troubling 54 behind.
Seven rallies remain, but seven rallies have been. Time is running out for Neuville in particular to rescue his title bid.
Grégoire Munster deserved so much better than to be sat on the sidelines on Sunday.
It had been far from a stunning performance, but undeniably a smart one. Deliberately checking his speed on Friday, allowing the rally to come to him via drama for others, was absolutely the right tactical ploy for both driver and team.
And it worked. OK, a malfunctioning handbrake made life complicated across Saturday’s six stages, but he was still on course for a top-six finish and looked every bit like achieving it.
That was until Saturday evening service, where he was hit by a common fuel-related problem which ruined his weekend.
Munster must take solace from the fact that none of the issues that occurred this weekend were down to him though. And in the context of a building narrative comparing him (generally negatively) to team-mate Josh McErlean, this was a good time to outperform him too.
Cyril Abiteboul was tentative in his assessment on Friday, with Adrien Fourmaux again sat in a promising position overnight.
In the context of too many unforced errors when his rally had gone wrong, the Hyundai boss was confident Fourmaux’s recent work with a sports psychologist had done the trick – but he didn’t have any conclusive proof.
“So far there’s not been any challenges, there’s not been any difficulties,” he told DirtFish. “So we can only really definitely sort of tick that box if there is some difficulty, and we can see a different type of reaction, but I have no doubt that this is what will happen.”
Abiteboul’s hunch proved correct.
Fourmaux did make a slight mistake (which seemed to irk Abiteboul) in hitting a bank and breaking his suspension on Saturday, but thereafter he backed off, got the car through and delivered a badly-needed podium result.
In doing so, Fourmaux proved he’s learned his lesson and has built himself a solid platform again to chase better results in the second half of the season.
Yohan Rossel’s determination to try and recover 25s, and depose not just Kajetan Kajetanowicz but more crucially Gus Greensmith, was impressive – as was Greensmith’s response to avoid being beaten.
Perhaps on another weekend that situation would feel crucial for the championship picture. Yet it didn’t, because Oliver Solberg was 90s up the road.
For the third gravel event running (and second in WRC2 terms), Solberg was the cream of the Rally2 field to move himself into the WRC2 championship lead – sitting pretty with three wins from four starts. But it was the manner in which he achieved this latest result that said the most.
The Swede led from start to finish in Greece – destroying his rivals on the first gravel stage and just controlling things thereafter. No dramas, no mistakes, barely even any media coverage (but for all the right reasons), Acropolis was a clear demonstration of how complete a driver Solberg has become.
While the WRC2 title remains the target, and would hardly hurt, it almost doesn’t matter. On current form it’s clear Solberg is too good for this level.
Words:Luke Barry
Tags: Acropolis Rally Greece, Acropolis Rally Greece 2025, What we learned, WRC, WRC 2025
Publish Date June 30, 2025 DirtFish 
https://dirtfish-editorial.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/2025/06/yuHZqX9x-EVANS07GRE25tb204-1-780x520.jpg June 30, 2025
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