Britain’s Stuart Jones will be out to gain further experience in his third PWRC event, while Red Bull’s Andreas Aigner will want to build on his first PWRC points’ finish of the season in Argentina.
Other significant entries:
Around 72 crews are due to start the Acropolis Rally, with 21 in World Rally Cars.
In addition to those competing with ‘Manufacturer’ or ‘Manufacturer Teams’, Toni Gardemeister and JRC regular,
Urmo Aava will both use Mitsubishi Lancer WRC05’s, while Jan Kopecky and
Francois Duval will fly the flag for Skoda.
Mads Ostberg will also be in action in an Adapta-run
Subaru Impreza WRC and Guy Wilks will be back in his 2005 spec Ford Focus WRC, after his last outing in Portugal.
Other than that, in addition to the 21 drivers’ competing in the Production Car WRC category, another 16 drivers’ will be competing in N4 / Group N cars, most noticeably Martin Prokop, who is a regular in the JRC with
Citroen.
Route:
The route is broadly similar to 2006 with the base again in Athens. However, as the Olympic Stadium was unavailable due to the Champions League soccer final, the Olympic Equestrian Centre at Markopoulo is the new base. It is home to the service park and three runs over a purpose-built 3.20km super special stage on Thursday and Saturday evenings and Sunday lunchtime.
The opening leg heads north-west of the city, much of it on roads familiar from last year, and also includes a short test on the very edge of the service park. The second leg is the longest of the event. It heads west of Athens for a mix of old and new tests and includes two 15-minute remote service points in Loutraki.
The final day is again based to the north-west of Athens before the finish at Markopoulo after the super special stage. Drivers tackle 21 tests covering 334.44km in a route of 1572.33km.
Last year:
Marcus Gronholm won the event in 2006, 2mins 26secs up on
Sebastien Loeb.
Mikko Hirvonen took the final place on the podium to give Ford a 1-3, while
Toni Gardemeister,
Henning Solberg and
Daniel Sordo rounded out the top six.
