McRae still in charge

McRae has enjoyed rare reliability in the Ford Focus and is now just seven stages away from his second win of the season.

However those seven stages are spread over 141km and as every one of the stages will be just as damaging as today. More than half of the factory-registered crews have retired and the main cause has been suspension or steering failure as high-tech components snap like twigs.

The man on a charge today has been Richard Burns, but although the series leader has set fastest times on four of today's stages, a run of damper problems has left him further adrift of McRae.

It has been frustrating for Burns, who should have been snapping at McRae's heels this evening. As it is he has enough stage mileage to overhaul McRae if he gets a trouble-free run, but his best chance of scoring his fourth win of the year is if the Fords break down. And on the evidence of the past two days that's not looking too likely.

So far the retirements list includes both Mitsubishis, both SEATs and both Hyundais, with only Ford and Subaru having a full house of official cars left in the running.

Didier Auriol retired with broken suspension and Toni Gardemeister with a broken steering arm. Peugeot lost Marcus Gronholm (who started the event second to Burns in the Championship) with suspension failure and came within a whisker of a wipeout when Francois Delecour broke his sump guard on the final stage, had an underbody fire and then lost a front wheel...

Stephen Finlay's excellent run came to an end this morning with steering failure on his Ford Focus.

For a full list of times click 'here'.