McRae heads tactical showdown in Greece

Quite how the gameplan will pan out won't be known until Saturday morning when cars set off on Leg Two of the rally. As in Cyprus, several drivers tried hard not to be first on the road into tomorrow's stages, with the Subaru squad slowing more than the Fords to achieve this.

Burns led the early running, along with young gun team mates Petter Solberg and Markko Martin, but McRae and Sainz put in a late charge to take a Blue Oval one-two as the event heads into day two.

The rocky Greek stages are much faster once they have been cleared by the frontrunners, but there is a fine line between the road being cleared and becoming too rutted. McRae, therefore, decided to fly in the face of the recent trend of slowing down in order to get a better position on the road and do exactly the opposite.

"I pushed like hell and tried to make a break for it and stretch it out a bit," said McRae. "We don't have a choice because Richard [Burns] and the others can see exactly what we're doing anyway. It's not an option to play with Richard here and I'm fed up with playing with him anyway."

Burns decided to go the other way on the tactics front and will hope to enjoy better conditions running third on the road on Saturday as he has 33 seconds to make up on his Scottish rival.

"It's the same as when we had no choice in Cyprus: Colin has no choice here," said Burns, "It's not an insurmountable gap and I think we're perfectly capable of making it up."

Fortunately for them, Solberg and Martin both dropped back on the final stage with gearbox and suspension problems respectively, meaning the Subaru pairing will have the road cleared by their team leader on Saturday.

The event has again lived up to its tough reputation, with several top names sidelined today. Didier Auriol's Peugeot blew its clutch soon after the start of the opening stage, while reigning World Champion Marcus Gronholm lasted two stages further before he holed the sump on a rock and posted his sixth retirement from seven stages. Once again Peugeot will leave an event with no points and little real indication of when an improvement will be seen.

Gilles Panizzi finished the day sixth in the Grifone Peugeot, while
Harri Rovanpera wound up eighth in the sole remaining works 206 WRC. The Finn complained of handling problems throughout the day, but made suspension and transmission changes before the final stage and seemed much happier.

Other retirements include Toshi Arai, whose Subaru suffered an engine fire, happily without setting the countryside alight, and Thomas Radstrom, whose Citroen Xsara suffered electrical failure just two kilometres from the end of the final stage.

McRae and co have seven rocky and dusty stages to negotiate tomorrow, including a rapid fire three in a row in the middle of the leg, which could be make-or-break. Also key will be the fact that three of the seven tests are re-run stages, making the going tough for those further back. With Fords heading one way and Burns the other, it could go either way.