Kronos boss, Marc van Dalen has heavily criticised Daniel Sordo, after the Spaniard crashed out of the Cyprus Rally on Sunday in the Down Town Special, a stage which was purely academic as it didn't count towards the overall result.

Sordo was in tenth position prior to his off and on course to score the final manufacturers' point, something that could prove crucial at the end of the season, given they are now only seven points ahead of BP Ford in the race for the manufacturers' title.

The incident occurred near the start of the 3.4 kilometre DTS, when he failed to negotiate a left-hand corner in his Xsara and ploughed straight on into a concrete wall. His car had to be towed out of the test and he retired on the spot. Although there was some speculation initially that he might not have got the message the stage was not going to count, this was not the case, as the FIA safety delegate told his co-driver, Marc Mari, that the stage had been cancelled due to safety concerns.

Unsurprisingly then, Kronos were none too pleased: "I don't know why Dani's accident happened," said van Dalen. "It's clearly a stupid mistake. There was no reason to do that, especially when the stage had been cancelled. He is a young driver, 23 years-old, and I hope this can help him for the future. Things like that are not acceptable at this level.

"We expect on rallies like this to get some more points. We know that the Xsara is a very strong car and we wanted more points. Okay it is never finished. We are still leading [the manufacturers'], but seven points is not a big gap - we will see after Turkey. It is difficult. When we started the season the Manufacturers' Championship was not our objective. After every event we saw it was possible. We must work hard all together to give some confidence back to Dani. We will see."

Sordo meanwhile, who had to re-start under the SupeRally on Saturday, after engine/turbo problems in the penultimate test during leg one, said that he had just got 'over-excited': "I found it hard to develop a good rhythm from the start of the rally. I got a bit over-excited by the thought of being back on asphalt [on the Down Town Special]," he confirmed. "But the grip is not so good when you just have gravel tyres."

For the record, since being promoted to the number two car, Sordo has only scored manufacturers' points in one of his four events, when he finished second on the Rallye Deutschland back in August.