Solberg hit by late crash

The Norwegian ace struggled since losing time on the opening stage on Friday, but was looking set for a decent points haul when disaster struck on the penultimate stage. He went off the road and struck a wall, damaging the suspension and driveshaft of his car, and was forced to struggle to the finish.

"What can I say?" he said. "I just hit a patch of snow, braked a little too late and slid into a wall. It's a shame as I wasn't really driving to risk anything, but these things just happen sometimes. Perhaps I was a little unlucky, but at least we didn't drop out of the points altogether.

"Luckily, we're taking two points away this year, which is two more than last year! Overall, it's not such a bad result especially when you consider that there are 15 more rallies still to go."

Subaru rally boss David Lapworth said: "Monte Carlo has certainly lived up to its difficult and specialist reputation. It's a shame that after such a well-paced performance on Friday and Saturday Petter was caught out this afternoon. But, these things happen and we can take some consolation from the fact that he's got some points in the bag."