Burns takes dominant Safari victory

The African classic was the scene of his first victory at WRC level back in 1998.

Burns has controlled this year's Safari throughout, benefiting from superb Subaru reliability.

His win, backed by team-mate Juha Kankkunen's second place, moves Subaru into the lead of the manufacturers championship.

Burns has now leapt to second in the drivers standings, only four points behind series leader Tommi Makinen, who retired early from this event.

Didier Auriol matched SEAT's best WRC result by taking third place, ahead of the Fords of Carlos Sainz and Petter Solberg.

Sainz took fourth place from his young Norweigan team-mate when Solberg slowed on the final stage.

Toshihiro Arai was the first non-works driver in sixth place after a consistently impressive performance.

Both Skoda's took home manufacturers' points. Armin Schwarz and Luis Climent did spectacularly well to finish seventh and eighth on the Czech team's first visit to this notoriously demanding event.

Final positions from the Safari Rally