Monte chaos! 'Fans cost me the lead', says McRae

Overnight leader McRae is running first on the road for today's (Saturday's) leg two, meaning that the Scot acts as a 'sweeper' for the cars behind.

"If you're first on the road, the fans aren't quite sure when you're coming and tend to stand in the road more," explained one leading former driver. "After that, they know there's another car coming every couple of minutes, plus they've been shocked by how fast you're going, so most of them - not all of them, unfortunately - stay a little further back."

The Monte had drawn considerable criticism over spectator problems in recent years, but had vowed to bring in measures to curb their behaviour after being brought to book by the sport's governing body, the FIA.

However, Ford team boss Malcolm Wilson said: "We had Colin on the radio during stage nine saying he was having to slow down and even stop on some occasions because of spectators in the road.

"Colin is happy for us to look at the footage from his onboard camera," he added. "We'll view it and if it's really bad, we'll ask the stewards to look at it."

Retrospectively voiding a stage would appear to be unprecedented in World Championship Rallying. It is unclear if the stewards have the capacity to do such a thing, but if Ford does pursue it, their case would likely be heard this evening in Monte Carlo.

Further angering Ford, SS10 was cancelled just two seconds before McRae was set to blast away from the startline of the 20.53km test. Instead, the cars were made to treat the stage as an additional road section and drive through it at normal road speeds.

Reports are also coming in of spectators throwing ice and snow onto corners after the ice-note crews have been through - another unwelcome Monte 'tradition'.

Today's second leg of the rally is scheduled to include just one more special stage, a second run through Sisteron which is set to start at 18:00 local time (17:00 GMT).

For full Colin McRae Q&A, click HERE.