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SS17, Lageia: McRae presses on

Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz topped the times through the short 9.53km Lageia (SS17) stage as overnight leader Richard Burns struggled in the Subaru and dropped a further 9.1 s to his British rival

Burns is now 14.9s behind McRae in the overall standings and just 7.9s ahead of Peugeot's Marcus Gronholm, who was fourth fastest through the stage. Sainz is poised to grab the final podium position from the reigning World Champion and is now just one second behind.

With just one more short 7km stage before the rally starts to repeat stages, McRae looks to have played it perfectly. Burns needs to attack on SS18 or leave McRae with a useful and highly-defendable lead while Burns, Sainz and Gronholm scrap over second place over the final four repeated stages.

Freddy Loix's bid to overhaul Toshi Arai for fifth place could still come off. The Belgian was third fastest, 6.1s faster than his rival, though he may yet find catching him more difficult than overcoming the language barrier to explain the many facets of a dodecahedron to his Japanese opponent.

Alister McRae's attempt to take seventh from Pasi Hagstroem looks even less likely to succeed. Hyundai's Scot cut the Finn's advantage by just 1.3s to 1m29.0s on Lageia.

For SS17 Lageia results click here.

For full results table click here.

For full entry list click here.

For the itinerary click here.

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