SS14, Rheola 1: Harri goes second

Burns only needs to finish fourth to seal his first World Rally Championship, and his reduced pace has rescinded the runner-up spot. Rovanpera also outpaced rally leader Marcus Gronholm on the stage by 8secs, but is 1m36secs in arrears of his team mate.

"No real problems," said Rovanpera. "At one hairpin we maybe lost 2-3 seconds."

Of the conditions, Harri added: "It felt very fast [ie: slippery] in some of the braking places."

Fourth placed Alister McRae had a bad start to the final day of the rally. His windscreen wipers failed on the 26.93km stage, and he was over 50secs slower than Rovanpera but, more importantly, the gap between himself and the now third placed Burns is over 2m30secs.

Skoda's Armin Schwarz lopped 17secs out of McRae's advantage, and is now 1m25s behind the Scot in fifth - Alister will need to get his vision problems sorted as this morning's stages are very foggy and damp.

It was a good stage for the marque from the Czech Republic as Bruno Thiry just edged into the top six fastest stage times in the second Octavia.

The third works Peugeot, that of Didier Auriol, was third quickest through the test as he fights back from his costly off yesterday. He is now just 25.9secs behind sixth placed Kenneth Eriksson (Hyundai).

For full times from SS14, click here.

For full rally live timings, click here.

For rally itinerary, click here.

For full entry list, click here.