SS19, El Mirador 2: Burns clawing back McRae

Stage by stage Richard Burns is steadily eating into Colin McRae's lead, setting another fastest time through the re-run of El Mirador, SS 19. But McRae's lead is still at 22 seconds and the Subaru star needs his fellow Brit to run into problems on the remaining two stages, if he is to have any chance of taking the lead

May 6, 2001, 4:00 PM

Didier Auriol, Peugeot's sole driver on the rally, popped up to score the second fastest time on the stage. However, McRae is not giving up his lead easily, setting the third quickest time, six seconds off Burns' pace.

Petter Solberg overcame his power steering difficulties to record the fourth quickest time. But the Subaru driver was not able to claim back much of the advantage he lost to Tommi Makinen in the battle for fourth place, as Makinen finished behind the young Norwegian in fifth, just one second back.

The Finn has a 14-second lead over Solberg as the rally heads to the second service of the day at Mina Clavero.

Francois Delecour rounded out the top six stage times on SS19. The penultimate stage of the rally, the 22.26km Mina Clavero test is scheduled to get underway at 17.48 UK time.