As Tänak himself pointed out, there is a long way to go yet until the finish line.

The 2024 WRC season continues this weekend in Greece with the Acropolis Rally, held on challenging gravel roads.

Tänak finished first after Friday's six stages, followed by his teammate at Hyundai Dani Sordo (Spain), who was 21.8 seconds behind, and Thierry Neuville (Belgium), the third Hyundai man, 45.2 seconds behind having had to act as "track cleaner" (ie. being the first to go out).

While Hyundai had a good day, the same cannot be said of either Toyota or M-Sport Ford and some other competing teams in the lower categories.

Stage one ended prematurely thanks to a severe crash involving local driver Lambros Athanassoulas in the WRC2 class.

Welshman Elfyn Evans (Toyota) suffered a turbo failure, while Takamoto Katsuta, also of Toyota, had to retire after damaging his Yaris in stage three.

Adrien Fourmaux ( M-Sport) had to retire one stage later, and Gregoire Munster, another M-Sport driver, was hit with a 20-second penalty over a tire change which took too long.

Eight-time world champion Sébastien Ogier (Toyota) won three of the first four stages. On the sixth stage, he lost nearly two and a half minutes, car's turbo had failed

Tänak said at the end of Friday's stages: "We are grateful to have made it through without issues. The temperatures and roads have been tough. It's a challenge, but nothing is decided yet; we all know what can happen tomorrow."

"We still have a lot of work to do," he added.

"Until Sébastien had his problems we were trying to find a better balance in the car. We made things better for the last two stages, but ultimately this rally isn't just about speed but endurance. We got the car home today, but we need to do the same over the next two days," Tänak noted.

Tänak, WRC champion in 2019, has yet to win in Greece though has two second places to his name. Fellow Estonian Markko Märtin took victory back in 2003.

Ahead of the race he called the race's profile "Nice.The roads are wider than in Portugal and Sardinia, and the surface is rougher and slower, which has worked well for our car in the past."

The rally center located in Lamia in central Greece, and Friday's stages took place in the vicinity of that town; Saturday's full day of competition will move towards Athens. Two stages will be run Sunday, one of them twice, near Lamia.

How about some raw Acropolis action as a little Friday treat? #AcropolisRally #WRC pic.twitter.com/oejSVIC7AR

— Hyundai Motorsport (@HMSGOfficial) September 6, 2024

Other Estonians taking part, in this case in the second-tier WRC2 category, are Robert Virves (Škoda) and co-driver Aleks Lesk are competing, as is Georg Linnamäe and his British co-driver James Morgan.

Virves put in a remarkable performance and topped the WRC2 class at the end of Friday.

Linnamäe (Toyota) had a difficult first half of the day, but he completed the afternoon stages cleanly to lie in 14th overall.

Also notably, Romet Jürgenson and co-driver Siim Oja lead theJunior WRC season lead the standings by seven points, and are racing in Greece too.

Thursday morning's shakedown saw Ott Tänak's teammate at Hyundai, Thierry Neuville (Belgium), posting the fastest time, finishing the 3.62 km test with a time of 2:38.2 on his third outing.

Tänak was third (2:39.7), sandwiched between Neuville and Toyota's Takamoto Katsuta, (2:39.1)

The Acropolis Rally has already resumed on Saturday, from 8:16 a.m. with the longest stage of the rally (28.67 km). Five more stages follow, the last starting after 9 p.m.

Sunday brings three more stages before the race end in the afternoon.

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