Acropolis Rally: Citroen JR Team leg two summary

Three C4s in the top five for the Citroen Junior Team

Having proved their performance yesterday, the Citroen Junior Team demonstrated its consistency throughout the second day of the Acropolis Rally of Greece, with young French stars Sebastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia holding second in the overall provisional classification. Russian youngster Evegny Novikov and his Australian co-driver Dale Moscatt were the best performers of the day, setting three more fastest times and occupying fourth place. Zimbabwe's Conrad Rautenbach and British co-driver Daniel Baritt are fifth.

While the first day of Acropolis Rally of Greece was difficult, Saturday turned into a true endurance test that stretched both cars and crews to the limit. Five out of the top 10 crews were forced to retire on the roads of the Peloponnese, in a gruelling day's action. The three Citroen Junior Team crews nevertheless kept up a good pace, looking after their machinery while setting excellent times.

Sebastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia started sixth this morning and delivered a perfect performance. The Junior World Rally Champions looked after both their Citroen C4 WRC and their tyres to make good progress through the order as more experienced crews fell by the wayside. " We overcame all the obstacles, " Ogier said. " The roads were very rough this afternoon but the tyres worked very well. The result proved that we had a good psace. I am very satisfied. "

They will start the final day in second overall just behind seven-time rally winner Mikko Hirvonen. " There's still a difficult day ahead of us with a long stage repeated rwice, several things can still happen. I hope we can continue like this. " Ogier concluded.

Evgeny Novikov became the youngest driver to set a fastest stage time on the World Rally Championship yesterday and continued his rally at the same pace, making back some of the time lost with a double puncture. The Russian occupies fourth place tonight. " I really tried to push as hard as I could, " said Novikov. " We set some fastest times and it's a good result for us. We will see with the team what our strategy could be for tomorrow. "

Conrad Rautenabach also made progress up the order to complete this difficult second day in 5th overall. " The stages were really difficult today especially on the second loop. I tried to look after my tyres and the times were good. We are in a good position for tomorrow, " he said.

" We've had a fantastic day, " said Benoit Nogier, Citroen Junior Team Manager. " Circumstances have placed us very high up the order but that does not take anything away from the teams performance. We were at pains to explain to our crews yesterday about the limits of the tyres and car on this tricky surface. None of the drivers made any mistakes during a perfect day for us. Sebastien can take a podium at the least. Evgeny was the best performer of the day, while Conrad is less than a second per km off the top times and is having the best rally of his season. We can scarcely believe that our C4 WRCs are 2nd 4th and 5th tonight! "

-credit: citroen