At the start of Rally Acropolis 2013 Sebastien Ogier has a technical problem with the fuel pump and retired. Ogier stopped 22 km from the start of today's SS 1 Kineta - Pissia (47.70 km). Many top drivers start the rally with problems. Mads Ostberg lost a wheel in the first stage. Finally Ostberg lost more than 3-minutes.
Mads explains:  “At the beginning of the stage we did a lot of switching between concrete and gravel and each time the surface changed we went over a step. I was going through a corner and onto a step when the wheel just fell off. There was no damage to the suspension or the steering. The only thing left on the hub was the bolt, the nuts and the cone where the wheel fits. Maybe it happened that I again hit something in the absolute worst possible angle with the tyre, I don’t know.
Mikko Hirvonen is also in a problem in the first stage. He losts almost 6-minutes in the first stage. Mikko explains:  “Something is broken in the steering rack or something from the steering. It was going really well but then 7km from the finish I started to hear some noise and feel that something was loose in the steering. Then one kilometer after that I was turning in a corner and it just went loose. I turned the steering wheel three times and nothing happened - the car just went straight ahead.
After that there were a couple of hairpin corners where I had to stop, turn the wheel, then go a bit forward, stop and turn the wheel, again and again, just to get round the corner.”
Robert Kubica also was out of the road to lost almost 3-minutes.
In the stage first finish Evgeny Novikov followed by Dani Sordo at +20.6 seconds and Latvala at +36.3. In the second stage for the first day Kineta with a distance of 26.05 km first finish Evgeny Novikov followed by Jari-Matti Latvala at +2.8 seconds.
Results after SS 2:
1. E. Novikov (Ford Fiesta RS WRC) 50:59.3
2. D. Sordo (Citroen DS3 WRC) +30.3
3. J. Latvala (Volkswagen Polo R WRC) +39.1
4. T. Neuville (Ford Fiesta RS WRC) +51.1
5. A. Mikkelsen (Volkswagen Polo R WRC) +1:14.6
6. N. Al-Attiyah (Ford Fiesta RS WRC) +1:32.9
Mads Ostberg is at 9th position, Kubica 10th and Hirvonen 17th position.