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McRae fears for his future

Colin McRae has admitted that he could be forced out of the World Rally Championship next year, after Peugeot's decision to keep Harri Rovanpera as its second driver has left the Scot and Citroen team-mate Carlos Sainz fighting over the last top-line drive available

The 1995 world champion currently drives alongside Sainz and Sebastien Loeb at Citroen, but a new WRC rule for 2004 means that a team's third driver must not have scored a podium in the last three years. With the young Frenchman on a long-term contract, that means either McRae or Sainz must leave the team - and with no other drives available in the leading teams, one of the two could be forced into early retirement.

"I could be out of a job and it wasn't my plan to be out of a job at this point in my career," McRae told The Guardian. "The problem is that the FIA has come out with this driver rule, which is really putting a restriction on successful drivers. There's only two seats where there could potentially be three. It's almost as though they're penalising success.

"There's no other seats, unless you want to go and drive for a team like Hyundai or Skoda. Hyundai is potentially a drive, but that's not something I would like to do at this point in my career."

McRae has had a difficult season so far at Citroen, his first with the French manufacturer. He has yet to score a victory in the Xsara and sits seventh in the championship table. By contrast, Sainz has scored one victory and is second in the points standings.

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