With two days remaining of this FIA Junior WRC season, it is Romet Jürgenson with one hand tentatively placed on the championship trophy, completing Friday at the double-points paying EKO Acropolis Rally Greece in second place and importantly with breathing space over his closest title rivals. Aiming to become the second Estonian to lift the trophy in the past three seasons, following in the footsteps of 2022 champion Robert Virves, Jürgenson safely navigated his M-Sport Ford-prepared Ford Fiesta Rally3 through some of the roughest Acropolis stages in recent memory, leading for large portions of the day.
But with his closest rivals for the title sitting further down the leaderboard, Jürgenson took a conservative approach to the second running of Tarzan, giving up the lead to reigning FIA Junior ERC champion Norbert Maior, who is targeting a maiden victory at world level.
The weekend in Greece began in earnest with an accident further up the road seeing the opening test of the rally cancelled. When action finally got underway it was championship fourth-placed Ali Türkkan setting the early pace, charging through SS2 – Dafni 1 – to claim an all-important Wolf Stage Win point and establish himself as the early leader.
But a suspected wheel issue on the next stage saw Türkkan pull over to check his Fiesta, and the Turkish driver lost more than a minute. He dropped to tenth, handing the lead temporarily to Maior.
It was short-lived however for Romanian Maior, with Jürgenson overtaking him on the next stage, only to hand it back before overnight service.
Taylor Gill, who won last month’s Secto Rally Finland and currently sits second in the championship, had been on track to finish Friday in third position. But the Australian dropped more than a minute through the second running of Tarzan with front left wheel damage and fell back to fifth.
Remarkably, Türkkan was able to fight his way back up to third, winning a brace of Friday afternoon’s stages to collect two more valuable Wolf Stage Win points, which could prove incredibly crucial come Sunday. He is exactly 30sec clear of Belgium’s Tom Rensonnet, who divides Türkkan and Gill.
Another driver who arrived in Greece well within championship contention was Paraguay’s Diego Dominguez. Spurred on by a message of support from Paraguay’s President Santiago Pẽna, Dominguez was strongly positioned in third overall before breaking a rear suspension arm on SS5, seeing him tumble down the standings to end Friday a lowly 10th. There was however some consolation for the South American with victory on the day’s final stage.
Action resumes on Saturday morning with a further seven grueling tests, highlighted by two runs of the world-famous Aghii Theodori stage.