The Greece Rally 2026 ended on Saturday in Serres with an excellent Dutch haul. Dennis Schans won the M1 class and, together with Nico Dekker and Frank de Mik, completed the podium for Memo Tours, Kenny de Vries and Jo Lenders took the overall SSV victory in the final stage, and Kenny van Eerd won the quad class. Schans also finished fifth in the overall classification, seventeen seconds ahead of Ruben van der Vlis.
The final stage itself, SS10 Vertiskos over 111 kilometres, went to Stefan Svitko. However, the Slovak appears in the published final classification with an asterisk at the bottom of the list, outside the ranking, after withdrawing from the race. As a result, Benjamin Harvey-Grounds is listed as the winner of the rally.
Schans second on the final day
Svitko rode the stage in 1:54:35. Behind him, Dennis Schans came in second on his Husqvarna FE 350, at 8:15, with Harvey-Grounds third at 13:23. It was the Dutchman’s best daily performance of the entire week, in a stage where he was faster than all the 450cc and 500cc machines.
The day went ahead according to the briefing, without any surprises from the organisation: departure from the Elpida Resort around 09:00, start of the stage at 10:00 and then a 38-kilometre liaison stage back to Serres. The organisation had warned in advance about the weekly market in Nigrita, close to the start, and about the fact that Saturday is hunting day in the region, with many cars and hunters on the mountain.
Behind the top three, Vladimír Oboňa and Michal Dobiš finished fourth and fifth. Ruben van der Vlis set the fifteenth time, Robbert Plarina the eighteenth, Nico Dekker the nineteenth and Frank de Mik the 21st. Bert Veenje was 23rd, Henk Nijmeijer 36th and Jaap Martens 40th; the latter lost well over an hour on the final stage compared with his usual pace, but reached the finish.
Svitko withdraws
In the final classification that the organisation published on Saturday afternoon, Svitko is listed separately at the bottom with an asterisk, with a total time of 17:09:09. That time is 1 hour and 43 minutes faster than that of Harvey-Grounds, who stands as the first-classified rider. Svitko is also entirely absent from the M2 class classification.
The results themselves contain no explanation, but according to information from the bivouac, the Slovak withdrew voluntarily. He reportedly rode the Greece Rally mainly to test his new machine as part of his collaboration with Ducati, and found no real competition in the field. After a crash on the sixth day, in which he suffered nothing serious, he decided to pull out of the race. Nevertheless, on Saturday he simply lined up at the start and set the fastest time on the final stage.
The fact remains that he won six of the seven days and that last year he took his sixth victory in Serres.
This hands the overall victory to Harvey-Grounds (Kove 450 Rally) in 18:52:19. Ferdinand Kreidl follows at 1:16:44, Robert Parry is third at 1:28:11. Parry also wins the rookie classification.
Schans fifth, Van der Vlis sixth at seventeen seconds
The battle for fifth place was the most thrilling of the entire rally. Schans finished with 20:29:36, Van der Vlis with 20:29:53. The gap after 1,455 kilometres and seven days is seventeen seconds in Schans’s favour, having made up well over twelve minutes on the final day.
Schans wins the M1 class with a 2:07:48 lead over teammate Nico Dekker. Frank de Mik completes the Memo Tours podium at 2:23:21. Jaap Martens finishes seventh in the same class. Van der Vlis closes out the M2 class in fourth, behind Harvey-Grounds, Kreidl and Parry. Robbert Plarina is eleventh in that class and sixteenth in the overall classification, his best position of the week. Henk Nijmeijer finishes fifteenth in M2 and 31st overall.
Bert Veenje, who dropped out on the second day and then rode the rest of the rally to the finish, ends up third in the Legend class for riders over 65, behind Jan Zatko and Lee Mason. Memo Tours could not resist noting afterwards that the Legend riders drive faster than they open the champagne, with Veenje’s own remark that he had the bottle open first. In the veterans’ classification for riders over 55, Martens finishes ninth and Nijmeijer tenth.
De Vries wins with a 2:44 gap
Among the SSVs it became a finale that stayed open until the final kilometres. Wil Wouters and Niels van Limpt started Saturday with a 2:44 lead over Kenny de Vries and Jo Lenders, but on SS10 it turned around. Kees Box and Kees Box Jr. were fastest with 2:01:49, De Vries and Lenders followed at 1:49 and Wouters and Van Limpt came in only fourth, at 10:33.
As a result, De Vries and Lenders (QFF Racing, Can-Am Maverick X3) win the SSV class with a final time of 20:27:01. Wouters and Van Limpt (Memo Tours Team, Polaris RZR) finish second at 2:44, Box and Box Jr. third at 59:35. Ruud and Patricia Vollebregt take fourth, Rene and Joyce van Eerd fifth. The Greek crew of Varvakis and Kokkinos did not start the final stage and close out the class in sixth. The entire podium is Dutch, as are five of the six placings.
Quads and Rally Challenge
In the quad class Kenny van Eerd rode the final stage in 2:20:15 and wins the class with a final time of 27:31:12. Roy van Eerd follows at 6:37:31.
In the Rally Challenge, Nico Keijzer (Riding Adventures) won the final stage in 2:21:10, ahead of Garrett Cahill at 7:14. Dave Ouwehand was fourth and Lars de Backker fifth. In the published class-by-class standings the Challenge group appears in the order Alan Stynes, Damien Fitzgerald, Keijzer, Cahill, Ouwehand, De Backker and Ann Moey, but without times or gaps.
Caveats
The figures that do exist show how tough the week was. Of the 47 motorcycle riders in the final standings, fourteen are listed with one or more retirements, three of them with six or more missed stages. The total distance of 1,455 kilometres also differed from the 1,700 kilometres on the posters and the more than 1,600 kilometres cited on the website.
