A far more positive Greensmith met with the media on Sunday afternoon in Greece - a stark contrast to the man who stood in the same position three weeks earlier at Ypres Rally Belgium and declared the entire team needed a reset.
That ‘reset’ seemed to have been heeded as Puma cars topped the timesheets on six out of 16 stages, aided by the return of Loeb for the first time since Safari Rally Kenya.
“After a very tricky middle of the year, it’s good to have a fresh set of eyes come in and that fresh set of eyes happens to have nine trophies in him (Loeb),” Greenesmith told WRC.com.
“You always know where the pace is because Séb is going to be at the front, so we can then decide if we are too far away and we can find it. It’s helpful."
Bolstered by Loeb’s performance at the head of the field, Greensmith also showed encouraging pace and was sitting just 3.4sec adrift of the top-five after Friday morning. However, his charge was halted soon afterwards with a terminal technical issue in the afternoon’s first stage.
Despite his Saturday setback, Greensmith was only focusing on the positives post-rally.
“I’m very happy with what I have done this weekend,” he said. “Friday was okay - maybe a bit slow to get off with, but the pace was for sure there.
“Saturday was quite fantastic with really good pace from my road position and on Sunday we had a bad road position but got some Wolf Power Stage points, so I’m really happy with the job I have done this weekend.
“For sure we should have had at least fourth position here and I genuinely feel we had the pace to challenge Dani [Sordo] on Saturday and Sunday.”
Attention now turns to Repco Rally New Zealand (29 September - 2 October) - a rally Greensmith has been looking forward to all season, and where he hopes to match or better the two fifth-place finishes he began the season with.
“New Zealand is the big bucket list one, I finally get to tick it off,” he beamed.
“There have been quite a few rallies when we have had good pace but not quite the result. Punctures, mechanicals, or a mistake by me…results haven’t come even though I felt we deserved more. It’s coming - we just need to crack on with it.”
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