Makinen out, Burns hits trouble too

The Subaru ace crashed nine kilometres into the stage, badly damaging the Impreza's radiator and cooling systems. The former world champion was lying well down in 19th at the time.

Meanwhile, reigning champ Richard Burns may have lost any chance of scoring points in his second event for Peugeot. The Englishman has plunged from 3rd place to 15th overall on the leaderboard at the end of stage three, after also suffering an incident with a snow bank.

Burns said that co-driver Robert Reid called a fast left minus in fourth gear just before the incident occured. "The back hit the bank and the front went into the snowbank," said Burns. "I floored it in fourth gear, it nearly stopped but then the car pulled out of the ditch. It only cost us about 10 seconds."

However the front of the car was filled with snow, adding to the Peugeot pairing's drama. "The engine temperature went very high so we had to stop to clear the radiator. That cost us another 45 secs," explained Burns.

However it wasn't over then either. "The air intake was blocked so we didn't have full power for another 10 kms."

Burns finished the stage with a time of 22m18.6s, just under a minute and a half slower than his team-mate Harri Rovanpera who set the fastest time.

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