SS4, Kev's: Sainz leads fight back
Carlos Sainz showed that Peugeot was not going to have it all its own way by topping the times on the fourth stage of Rally Australia, closely followed by championship hopefuls Richard Burns in second and Colin McRae in third
Peugeot's Marcus Gronholm and Harri Rovanpera led the way on Friday's opening two tests, but slipped back to fourth and fifth respectively on the short SS4 Kev's stage.
Sainz hustled his Focus WRC through the 9.56km section in 6m01.5s, a mere 1.3s ahead of Burns' Subaru Impreza while the Spaniard's Ford team mate and championship leader McRae was just 0.6s further back.
Despite Gronholm and Rovanpera's slightly slower times on the stage, and the fact that both were not entirely happy with the handling of their 206 WRCs at the previous service area, the pair remain first and second overall. Sainz's stage win moves him up into fourth spot behind McRae and ahead of Burns.
Didier Auriol finished sixth while joint championship leader Tommi Makinen was again seventh. The Finn is struggling both with his new Lancer WRC and with new co-driver Timo Hantunen, who is standing in for his regular cohort Risto Mannisenmaki, who was injured on the Corsica Rally three weeks ago.
Asphalt expert Gilles Panizzi, who is struggling on the Australian gravel, finished eighth and is in the same spot overall, while Francois Delecour (Ford) and Burns' Subaru team mate Petter Solberg were ninth and 10th.
For full times from SS4, click here.
For full rally live timings, click here.
For rally itinerary, click here.
For full entry list, click here.
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