Leg two round-up: And then there were two...

Makinen has led the event for all but two of the 18 stages (tonight's final stage, SS19, was scrapped as the stage start was like a bomb site even before the recce began!) but Sainz is now just 13 seconds behind the Finn.

Had Sainz not had a couple of 'offs' this afternoon then the positions might have been reversed.

At stake, aside from the obvious championship points, is Sainz's 24th victory to take him to the undisputed head of the all-time win list or Makinen's 22nd that would bring him to just one behind Sainz and Juha Kankkunen.

Reigning Champ Marcus Gronholm is already a massive two minutes adrift of this pair and will need one or both to hit trouble if he's to snatch a glass of bubbly. However, for a while even a podium slot looked in doubt as Richard Burns got within touching distance of his rear bumper this afternoon. Unfortunately for the Englishman his Subaru hit trouble. A new gearbox and steering rack fixed the problem but over the final pair of stages today Burns dropped more precious seconds to Gronholm thanks to a slow time on SS17 and a 20second visit to the scenery on the next.

Both Burns and Francois Delecour will be delighted at the cancellation of SS19. Burns was saved further time loss while Delecour may still be in the event as a result as the Focus lost second, fifth and sixth gears.

A quietly effective day has seen Alister McRae make solid progress up the leaderboard. He moved ahead of Hyundai team mate Kenneth Eriksson, when the wipers on the Swede's car failed, and by the close the Scot was up to sixth overall and closing fast on Delecour's ailing Ford.

Tomorrow's stages, to the far north of Porto, see a return to sandy and muddy surfaces that will favour the first two or three cars. There is no service between them and so the crews will have to keep their fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong...


Tommi Makinen, Mitsubishi, 3h19m17.3s
Carlos Sainz, Ford, +13.0s
Marcus Gronholm, Peugeot, +2m12.1s
Richard Burns, Subaru, +3m06.7s
Francois Delecour, Ford, +8m52.9s
Alister McRae, Hyundai, +10m38.9s
Kenneth Eriksson, Hyundai, +11m52.2s
Didier Auriol, Peugeot, +14m41.5s
Tapio Laukkanen, Toyota, +15m04.7s
Pasi Hagstrom, Toyota, +17m21.1s