Mexico: Martin leads Ford 1-2

It was a stunning result for the Blue Oval's works team M-Sport on its 100th WRC event. It gave Martin a share of the WRC drivers' championship lead, and means Ford tops the manufacturers' standings.

The rally started on Friday as per the form book. WRC champion Solberg put his 2004-spec Subaru Impreza to good use to build a lead, although series leader Sebastien Loeb showed the Citroen Xsara is a match for him thesedays on gravel and ended the day just 5secs in arrears.

That all changed when Solberg's battery died and he couldn't restart the Impreza to drive into service at the end of day one. He and co-driver Phil Mills physically shoved the car in 40secs late, but had received outside assistance in doing so, which is against the rules. Stewards handed out a 5min penalty, dropping the Norwegian to 13th.

Day two started badly for second placed Marcus Gronholm, whose power steering gave up on his Peugeot 307 just as it had done in Sweden. He manhandled the car through the opening three stages on Saturday, but dropped back to seventh. Another rally, another chance of victory gone.

At least Marcus was still in the event. Leader Loeb went out after SS6, as a heavy landing on a quick right-hander meant his Xsara's sump made unhealthy contact with a very solid rock. Despite trying to stem the oil leak on the following road section, Loeb posted his first retirement of the season - a cruel way to lose a 30-odd second lead.

Martin admitted he wasn't driving very well, but took advantage when Sainz escaped a massive high-speed spin that cost him time. Markko inherited a 9.7sec lead, while the delayed Solberg and Gronholm were already back up to fifth and sixth. Martin extended his lead as the day progressed, but didn't help his cause by arriving late at the start of stage 10, which incurred a 10sec penalty. He ended day two with a 14.4sec advantage over Sainz, who had been swapping second with Duval despite running on worn tyres after a mix-up on selection as per the new rules.

The star of Saturday, however, was Solberg. He was fastest on every stage, easily outpacing the battle for the lead. It was a case of what might have been. Martin, meanwhile, survived a scare when his cockpit filled with smoke near the end of day two, but the fault appeared to rectify itself.

Sainz attacked on the final day, getting to within 11.8secs after the second stage of the morning. But it all went wrong on SS13, the Spaniard rolling his Citroen onto its side, but he was able to continue, albeit having lost 1m13s. That promoted Duval to second, making Ford's perfect rally complete.

Sainz cruised home in third, and Solberg's fightback yielded fourth place as he passed team-mate Mikko Hirvonen on the penultimate stage. Petter cut the gap to the leader to 3m14secs by the finish, not bad for someone who lost 5m40secs at the end of the opening day.

Gronholm finished sixth, despite setting some quick stage times late on, while Finnish privateer Jussi Valimaki (Hyundai) got the better of a late scrap for seventh with Mitsubishi's Gilles Panizzi.