Alexey Lukyanuk will be aiming to make it three wins from three events in the 2018 FIA European Rally Championship as the series heads to Greece this weekend.
After taking victories in both the Azores Airline Rallye and Rally Islas Canarias so far this season, the Russian will be the man to beat going into round three.
A total of 12 stages and over 200km of stage miles lie ahead for round three of the championship.
19 R5-spec cars are entered and several drivers are aiming to catch up to championship leader Lukyanuk, none more so than Bruno Magalhães, who was forced to settle for seventh last time out after mechanical issues with his Skoda Fabia R5.
The Portuguese driver currently lies 41 points behind the leader after just two rounds, but a win in Greece could see him claw back points with several of their other rivals including Nikolay Gryazin and Fabian Kreim not entering round three due to it not being a designated event in the ERC Junior U28 series.
Photo Credit: Gregory Lenormand / DPPI
This gives drivers such as defending Greek champion Grzegorz Grzyb, who enters his home event and Hungarian Rally Champion Norbert Herczig the perfect opportunity to finish strongly overall this weekend.
The entry list also sees former GT driver Albert von Thurn und Taxis enter this with new co-driver Frank Christian, while young Pole Hubert Ptaszek enters the main ERC class after a strong start to his U28 campaign. Finn Juuso Nordgren, part of Skoda’s works outfit in the WRC2 championship, enters his maiden ERC event this weekend.
Photo Credit: Gregory Lenormand / DPPI
With both the ERC Junior U28 and U27 classes both missing this weekend, attention switches next to the ERC2 class, which sees a season-high of seven drives entered. Defending champion Tibor Érdi Jr will be aiming to win for the second event in a row, but the Hungarian won’t have it all his own way as drivers including Sergei Remennik and Juan Carlos Alonso will be battling for the win.
ERC3 also sees a strong entry list, with Emma Falcón going up against Artur Muradian, Greek driver Chrisostomos Karellis and Amittarjit Ghosh.
Round three of the 2018 FIA European Rally Championship takes place this weekend between June 1-3.
