Lemesos service: McRae, Burns set for showdown

The stages are repeats of this morning's quartet of tests, which means Burns should be able to do more head down charging and less road-sweeping of rocks. We caught up with them at the Lemesos service prior to the final blast.

(Ford) - leader: "There's still some way to go, but it's looking quite good. I lost a little time in the last stage (SS18) because some of my pace notes were not quite right and I lost my rhythm.

"I thought Carlos would have taken a bit more time off us than he did, but he's obviously not been getting that much advantage from running fourth on the road. Everyone knows what it's like, so you just have to play around it."

(Subaru) - second overall, +10.6s: "Basically, we haven't got as much grip as the cars running behind us, but there's not much you can do about that. We're driving as hard as we can and I think we've done the stages pretty near perfect.

"If it was a level playing field, I'd like to think we'd have a good go at Colin, but it's not."