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Latvala Leads Rally Greece after Friday Morning

Jari-Matti Latvala made the best of his road position on Friday to clinch the top spot in the Rally Greece – Acropolis after the morning session on Friday. Despite his winning weekend in Sardegna, the Ford works driver was scheduled to be the 6th driver to begin each of the Friday stages – since he's 6th overall in the WRC standings – and put some 7.8 seconds between him and Citroen's Dani Sordo after the first two stages.

“It's been quite okay, no big mistakes and we had quite a good feeling. Dani is pushing very hard, but I'm satisfied,” said Latvala, who'll try to put as many seconds as possible between him and his nearest rivals for the remainder of the day. The winner of the Friday stages will be forced to “open the roads” on Saturday, so the bigger the margin, the better.

I like this stage, every year I drive well here, I don't know why. My road position is better of course, but Latvala's is even better than mine,” added Sordo, whose SS2 win prevented a Ford 1-2 after the first two stages. Championship's 2nd placed Hirvonen is in 3rd place, only 1.5 seconds behind the Spaniard.

Sebastien Loeb has had a morning to forget in Greece, as he is currently on a distant 5th place overall, some 26 seconds off pace to leader Latvala. Adapta Subaru's Mads Ostberg managed to score the 4th quickest time of this morning's combined stages, ahead of Loeb and Citroen Junior's Evgeny Novikov and Sebastien Ogier.

Petter Solberg was aiming for a top position on Friday as well, and he was on his way to making the Top 3 after SS1, but a steering problem with his newly-improved Citroen Xsara led to a 45-second loss during SS2, as he is not trailing brother Henning for 8th place.

Only 2 stages into the Greek event, Stobart's Matthew Wilson had to report the first retirement of the Acropolis Rally, as his Ford Focus RS WRC encountered a oil pressure problems during the second stage.

WRC action will resume in Greece later this afternoon, when 3 more stages are scheduled to take place on Friday.
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