The Greek rally marked the third event of the five-round season. Despite back-to-back wins in Sweden and Portugal, Gill shared the points lead with Mille Johansson due to stage wins.

Gill and Johansson entered level on 59 points, but now the Australian leads his Swedish title rival by seven points after his title combatant finished sixth.

Despite punctures, Gill finished second. They had been as low as seventh in the event and even suffered two punctures on Special Stage 11.

Gill trailed the leaders by two minutes at the end of Day 1, and that blew out to seven minutes by the end of Day 2. However, attrition played its part and allowed Gill to sit third.

Just eight cars made the finish. Gill wound up nearly six minutes adrift of rally winner Ali Turkkan.

“We were under no illusions that it was going to be a bit of a lottery,” Gill said.

“Day one was frustrating. We had punctures, the car was overheating, and we couldn’t really find a groove on the stages.

“We knew, however, that we had to stick fat, push on, and wait for the others to flounder around us.”

“We’d clawed our way back to the podium, but as it is with Greece, there’s always a
rock around the corner.

“We had two flats in one stage, which dropped us back down the leaderboard. We began the fightback again, and finished the day well.

“Our third consecutive podium in 2025 gives us a seven-point championship lead heading into the penultimate round, Rally Finland.

“It wasn’t an easy weekend; we did much more conserving than proper rally driving, but that’s the way it is in Greece.”

Ott Tanak scores breakthrough win

Estonia’s Ott Tanak had to wait until the seventh round of the season to score his first win with Hyundai.

Tanak beat Toyota’s part-timer Sebastien Ogier by 32.8s in what proved to be a gruelling rally on the whole.

The win was a drought-breaker for Tanak and Hyundai. The Korean marque took its last win late last year at the Central European Rally.

FIA World Rally Championship points leader Elfyn Evans was fourth behind Adrien Fourmaux. With victory, Tanak closed the gap in the title race to a meagre 12 points.

The win almost didn’t come for Tanak after striking gearbox trouble on the final stage.

“I was very worried, to be honest,” said Tanak.

“In the last stage, third gear got very noisy and I understood that this one broke.

“Soon, the whole gearbox got very noisy and we didn’t have much confidence that we would finish the stage and get back here. It was definitely far too much stress to win a rally.”

The FIA World Rally Championship returns on July 17-20 for Rally Estonia.