Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team heads to EKO Acropolis Rally Greece this week aiming to turn the FIA World Rally Championship’s gravel-heavy second half into a title fightback.
Round eight of the season marks a significant shift in the 2026 campaign. After a first half split across snow, asphalt, rough gravel and mixed conditions, the championship now begins a run of seven consecutive gravel rallies to the finish – starting with one of the toughest of them all.
Greece has been kind to Hyundai in recent years. The Korean manufacturer has won three of the last four Acropolis editions, with Thierry Neuville triumphing in 2022 and 2024 and Ott Tänak adding victory last season. Hyundai also swept the podium in both 2022 and 2024, making the rough Greek gravel roads one of the team’s strongest modern hunting grounds.
That record arrives at a useful moment. Toyota Gazoo Racing has controlled much of the opening half of the season, winning last time out at FORUM8 Rally Japan with Elfyn Evans and filling the top five positions in the drivers’ standings through Evans, Takamoto Katsuta, Oliver Solberg, Sami Pajari and Sébastien Ogier.
Evans leads the championship by 20 points from Katsuta after his Japan victory, but the Welshman is expecting a demanding start to the rally as first car on the road.
“To win Rally Japan again was amazing and it rounded off what’s been quite a good first half of the year for us,” Evans said. “But we know that the second half can be tough with every rally being on gravel, so everything is still very open in the championship.
“Greece can be one of the more difficult rallies to open the road, particularly with most of the Friday stages being run only once. But we’ve got some good experience now of being in this position, and we’ve been working hard together with the team to try and improve the feeling and the pace for those conditions.”
For Neuville, the return to gravel brings renewed optimism. The Belgian sits seventh in the championship after a difficult run of asphalt events, but he arrives in Greece with a favourable starting position and two Acropolis wins on his record.
“We have a good starting order heading into a run of gravel events, where we know we can be competitive,” Neuville said. “That gives me a real boost of motivation, knowing we’re heading into a rally where we should perform well.
“Our goal is clear – we’re going for victory. With our starting order, a competitive car and a rally where we have always performed well, that is absolutely our target.”
Team-mate Adrien Fourmaux is also looking to use Greece as the start of a stronger run. The Frenchman finished on the Acropolis podium last year and is Hyundai’s highest-placed driver in the standings, just one point behind Ogier.
“It’s been quite a tough first half of the season due to the amount of Tarmac events, where we struggled a bit more,” Fourmaux said. “But we are in a good position to be very competitive for the rest of the season.
“Our target for the second half of the season is to get some victories to be back on track for the championship fight.”
Dani Sordo completes Hyundai’s line-up in the third i20 N Rally1, returning for one of his strongest events. The Spaniard has stood on the Acropolis podium in four of his last five starts and finished second in 2024 after leading before a puncture on Saturday.
Toyota, however, arrives with momentum and depth. Evans is joined by Katsuta, Solberg, Pajari and Ogier, with the team chasing more points after its home 1-2-3-4 finish in Japan. Ogier is a former Acropolis winner, having claimed victory in 2011, while Solberg returns to Greece after winning WRC2 last year and finishing sixth overall.
M-Sport Ford World Rally Team fields four Puma Rally1 cars, with full-time drivers Jon Armstrong and Josh McErlean joined by Mārtiņš Sesks and Greek driver Jourdan Serderidis. On an event where road position and reliability can all alter the picture, the British squad will hope to take advantage of any Greek drama.
This year’s Acropolis has a new look. Rally headquarters move from Lamia to Loutraki, the seaside resort on the Gulf of Corinth, while the route spans Attica, the Peloponnese and Central Greece. Crews face 17 stages and 323.31 competitive kilometres, with 75.1% of the route new for 2026 and only Stiri carried over unchanged from last year.
The rally begins on Thursday with shakedown near Loutraki before the opening EKO Super Special Stage at The Ellinikon Sports Park in Athens. A ferry transfer – incorporating a very unique Parc Ferme – then takes cars and crews from Corinth to Itea ahead of Friday’s longest leg, which includes Bauxites, Parnassos Mt, two passes of Stiri, Elikon Mt and Thiva.
Saturday moves the action to the Peloponnese with Ghymno, Kolines, Menalo Mt and Kefalari, before Sunday’s finale pairs two runs of Aghii Theodori with two passes of Loutraki. The second pass of Loutraki will form the Wolf Power Stage.
