The Lancia Stratos of Marco Bianchini and Emanuelle Baldaccini recieves service last night. The pair now have built up a commanding lead as they face today's final four stages.

The Lancia Stratos of Marco Bianchini and Emanuelle Baldaccini remained in firm command last night as dramas hit many of the crews of the demanding night stages in Greece, and the pair, last year's winners, go into today's fourth and final leg of the 7th Historic Acropolis Rally with a commanding lead overall and the chequered flag almost in sight.

The night stages of the third leg last night held a lot of surprises for all the crews taking part in the Historic Acropolis Rally. All the competitors had to face not only the challenge of driving at night, but the very bad weather. In the afternoon, just before the crews left the service park of Loutraki, heavy rain caused a lot of problems to all the drivers, about their tyre choices.

The night adventure on tarmac stages, started from stage Gymno 2. Sadly, for technical reasons the stage was cancelled and all the crews headed to the next stage, Galatas 2. But the 17th stage also was wiped off the timesheets due to an accident involving Mihalis Likakis and Theodoros Hatzitheodoridis in a Ford Escort. The Greek crew went off the road and the resulting crash caused a light injury of the driver’s neck, fortunately with no more consequences. The remaining crews crossed the stage without timing, while the Stewards will destine the time for the crews that didn’t compete the stage later this morning.

After three morning stages earlier yesterday followed by the night adventure of two further stages, Bianchini and Emanuelle Baldaccini had built up a very comfortable lead after setting the day's pace. The Italian was the fastest on the two remaining night special stages that were held after the other two fell victim to circumstances and their lead has now increased to almost seven minutes. "It was very slippery," said Bianchini. "We had made the correct tyre choice and we didn’t have any problems. There was a lot of rain, especially in the third stage."

There was a major change at second place, since Vassilis Velanis and John Velanis in their Ford Escort had a small off; however they were able to bring back the car on the road as some spectators helped them. This led to the pair losing time and Enrico Brazzoli and Simone Trutalli in the chasing Porsche 911, and the latter crew gained second place. The Italians had a careful run over the night stages, avoided any mistakes, and in combination to the bad luck that befell the Greek crew, can now defend second place over today's final leg.

Further behind and taking as a fact that today the Stewards will decide the time that will be given to the crews which didn’t compete in the 17th special stage, we must note the performance of Vassilis Polito and Konstantinos Politis in the Datsun 510 1600 SSS. They were second fastest over the two special stages and have reached 5th place in the overall classification, having overtaken Spiros Tsapalos and Diamantis Petropoulos in another Porsche 911. In front of them, in 4th place overall, are still 'Montechristo' and Αpostolos Pallas in a Ford Escort, who managed to retain themselves in top positions during the night special stages.

Today, the marathon of the 7th Historic Acropolis Rally draws to a conclusion; the itinerary consists of four more timed special stages, which will lead the surviving crews back to the famous Acropolis in Athens, where the cars will finish at 17:15.