The M Sport Ford WRC Team had another great day at Acropolis Rally in Greece as Adrien Fourmaux and Gus Greensmith maintained fifth and sixth overall in the event.
Speaking following the action, Fourmaux said:
Today’s stages were much less risky in terms of the big rocks that we saw yesterday and we could push a little more. The car was good from the beginning but after a slight change to the differential in service I felt better still and this was shown in my stage times.
“We are in a very positive place for the team so far. It’s still a long way to go of course but we can consider the two first days to be a success and hopefully we can stay out of trouble and bring at least fifth place back”
Gus Greensmith commented on his day saying:
“I would have preferred to have more soft tyres on the car today, I think I could have pushed a little harder in some places with the extra grip, but we are very limited in terms of the number of the soft compound we are allowed to use.
“The stages this morning were very different to how we saw them on the recce – where it was so wet and foggy we could barely see them at all in places! Today was bright sunshine and gave ideal conditions to go quicker but without the experience of doing the recce in these conditions our notes couldn’t be as accurate as we needed them to be and we had to stay a bit within ourselves.”
M-Sport Ford WRC Team Principal Richard Millener commented saying:
By its nature the Acropolis is a tough, gruelling event for cars and crews, but that is the sort of event on which Fords have thrived throughout the history of the WRC. To date our best event of the season was in Kenya on the Safari Rally, and now in Greece we are seeing the team show the same sort of form once again.
“There is still a long way before the finish, but we’re very pleased to see the hard work that the team has put in at the factory to prepare for a challenge of this scale bearing fruit. The crews have had one or two setup changes that they have wanted to really get their cars dialled-in but overall the drama has been minimal and we can only be satisfied with holding these positions on the leaderboard.
“There is no obvious threat to where we stand at this point in terms of our rivals, which means that the crews don’t have to risk things too much after so much mileage at this stage. It’s a long event and the way that they have adapted to it so far has been good to see.”