Cyprus: Solberg storms to second win

Peugeot driver Harri Rovanpera was still in with a shout going into the final day, but Sollberg extended his advantage from 25 seconds overnight to almost double that after the final day's first three stages. Then, going into a second lap of these three stages, Rovanpera broke a driveshaft, leaving his now three-wheel drive car struggling over the remaining two and a half stages.

While Sollberg was thus able to win as he pleased, stretching his advantage to 4m14s, the Finn fell back into the clutches of Citroen's Sebastien Loeb. Just when it looked as though his hard-fought second place would be reduced to third, Rovanpera gave his all and avoided the loss of three points by holding on to retain second place overall by just 2.8 seconds.

So it was that Citroen drivers filled third, fourth and fifth places, with Loeb almost half a minute clear of Colin McRae who had double that in hand over Carlos Sainz. Citroen was the only works team to have more than representative left running at the finish on an event that had lost Peugeot's championship leader Richard Burns and team-mate Marcus Gronholm as well as Ford star Markko Martin long before the final day.

With so many of the championship's big hitters out, Ford's third works entry, Mikko Hirvonen picked up the three points for sixth place, with Armin Schwarz adding to Hyundai's slim points tally by finishing seventh overall, with privateer Ford driver Alistair Ginley claiming a career best eighth place.