McRae hit by late engine problem

While Juha Kankkunen seems set for a home win after dominating the penultimate stage, Colin McRae's Finnish jinx appears to have struck again.

The Scot was running 4th, his best performance yet on a rally where he has rarely lasted beyond the first day, but lost nearly two minutes on SS22 with an engine problem. He managed to complete the stage but has dropped to 6th.

Meanwhile, Kankkunen goes into the final Live TV stage with a 13.6s lead over his Subaru team-mate Richard Burns, who had been closing for much of the final leg.

If he wins, this will be Kankkunen's second victory of the season and will make him the most successful WRC driver ever, a title he currently shares with Carlos Sainz. They have both won 22 world championship level rallies before now.

Sainz will be 3rd but McRae's problems elevate Marcus Gronholm to 4th.

The SEATs of Harri Rovanpera and Toni Gardemeister will be 5th and 7th unless McRae's problem is serious enough to stop him completing the road section to the final stage.

Didier Auriol has withdrawn from 9th place to prepare for the Live TV stage. The three fastest drivers score bonus points, and with retired works cars allowed to re-enter just for this stage, expect to see Thomas Radstrom and Tommi Makinen back in action as well.

Further down the leaderboard, Gilles Panizzi is now up to 34th in the third Peugeot 206.

Juoko Puhakka should beat Jani Paasonen to GpN honours, while in F2 it's another Finnish 1-2. Tapio Laukkanen will lead Jarmo Kytolehto home.

The British F2 contingent are still running (with the exception of leg two retirement Mark Higgins) and on SS22 Martin Rowe was able to overhaul Alister McRae's Hyundai for 3rd in class.

Neil Wearden, winner of the last BRC round, should complete his first ever Rally Finland in 39th place for Vauxhall.

Leaderboard after SS22: