Subaru KO’ed as Burns retires from ‘Monte’

The Englishman's retirement ends a miserable rally for the Prodrive-run squad, and comes just days after Subaru rally boss David Lapworth said the team would 'stick our necks out and take risks' to ensure the Impreza remained at the cutting edge of performance.

In a triple blow for the Banbury-based outfit, Burns' team mate Markko Martin retired with engine failure before the first stage, while Petter Solberg rolled his Impreza out on the fifth special stage.

Burns had completed all six of day one's special stages and lay fourth overall after fighting back from a poor start, but the Subaru began to smoke on the drive back from the Alpine stages to parc ferme in Monte Carlo.

"As we came into Monte Carlo, the car dropped onto three cylinders and lost power," said Burns. "After studying the data, we realised we wouldn't get out of Monte Carlo again, so we decided to save the engine. I have no idea what caused it."

The Impreza's flat four engine also suffered from reliability problems in pre-season testing, but the team will now strip down and investigate Burns' unit before deciding its plan of action.

"It is a tough decision to withdraw Richard," said Lapworth. "We might be inclined to continue to the bitter end, but we've agreed that this is the right course of action. This will enable us to determine the cause of the problem and ensure it doesn't happen again.

"We've looked to see if there's any comparison with the failure of Markko's car," he added, "but it seems clear the two are unrelated."

Burns was hotly-tipped to take his first World Rally Championship crown this season, but with Peugeot also losing all three of its factory cars on day one, including reigning champion Marcus Gronholm and title dark horse Didier Auriol, he is not counting himself out.

"The positive thing is that all the Peugeots are out," he said, "and if you think back I was in exactly the same position last year after the Monte. Sometimes these things happen - and it's usually on this rally or the Safari."