Burns looking good for drivers' crown.

Following a strategic, measured drive and the Leg one retirements of Colin McRae and Tommi Makinen, Subaru's Richard Burns lies in second place overall tonight - ideally placed to fight for his first WRC title.

The 30-year-old Englishman adopted a long-term approach to the opening stages that saw him rapid enough to keep pace with the leaders without taking any unnecessary risks - and on a day that saw seven Works team retirements, the strategy seems to have paid off.

Burns looking good for drivers' crown.

Following a strategic, measured drive and the Leg one retirements of Colin McRae and Tommi Makinen, Subaru's Richard Burns lies in second place overall tonight - ideally placed to fight for his first WRC title.

The 30-year-old Englishman adopted a long-term approach to the opening stages that saw him rapid enough to keep pace with the leaders without taking any unnecessary risks - and on a day that saw seven Works team retirements, the strategy seems to have paid off.

The rally started from Cardiff yesterday evening with a super special stage in Cardiff docks, but the real action began today when 117 cars left the Welsh capital in cold but dry conditions to contest seven stages in the forests around the service area at Felindre.

The much-hyped 'winner takes all' title battle between Tommi Makinen and British rivals Colin McRae and Richard Burns turned into a two horse race on SS2 after Makinen crashed and retired. This left the promise of a tough scrap between the two British rivals. But having initially set a blistering pace things were over for McRae on SS4 when he made a mistake and crashed his Ford.

Marcus Gronholm now leads the event by 36 seconds, but without McRae or Makinen in the running, Burns doesn't need to win the rally to win the 2001 drivers title, instead a finish anywhere in the top-four will be enough.

Reflecting on the day's events Burns said: "Those last two stages (SS7 and SS8) were pretty horrible, the first one was light but foggy, the second one dark but foggy which was about what we expected. In these conditions you're not really going at any speed at all and it's difficult to determine the levels of grip. It's been a good day, almost a mirror image of last year, we now need to drive to finish as Marcus did 12 months ago. It's a hard-rally, I'm not underestimating the challenge - you can't just cruise through it."

Elsewhere in the Subaru camp there were mixed fortunes. After a steady drive and getting used to his new co-driver Tony Sircombe, Toshi Arai holds overnight 14th.

Arai was pleased with his day's work. He said: "It's been pretty good, but very difficult for me today. The conditions are quite bad, especially on the last two stages in the dark and in the fog, as we didn't have the correct alignment with the light pods. Our plan was to take it steady on the first group of stages and then see how we could progress. Early on we weren't quite as happy with the set-up as we were at shakedown, but we changed the gearbox and started to set some reasonable times after that. We know that the car will be healthy for tomorrow, I haven't hit anything and I'm glad to be still in the rally."

After holding overnight second place, Petter Solberg retired on SS2 - the victim of a bizarre re-fuelling problem. Solberg noted: "Obviously when we realised we had a problem on SS2 we set about trying to fix it. Phil and I did everything we could to try and sort whatever was wrong, but nothing seemed to work. Now we know that there was no fuel, it's hardly surprising we had no luck. It's a very disappointing way for me to end the season. I was really, really looking forward to this rally, and driving in these great conditions, but for now we need to look forward to next year and working hard straight away with the team. I've really enjoyed my first full season with Subaru, Phil and I have made had some really good progress throughout the season and I can't wait to work with Tommi next year."

Markko Martin had an unlucky final rally with the team, he had an accident on SS4 and retired with mechanical problems on SS5.

Martin said: "I don't know exactly what happened. Maybe the damage to the engine was caused by the accident on the previous stage (SS4). We made a mistake this morning, which cost us some time and maybe cost us the rally. The car felt good at the start (of SS5) but 10km in it started running on two or three cylinders and then it stopped completely. We tried everything but couldn't get it going again. Unfortunately this has become a rally to forget, it's not really been the best season for us, we've made some mistakes and we've had some bad luck and it's cost us some good results."

The first stage of the rally began on Thursday night which was a floodlit 2.4km super special constructed in the Cardiff Docklands. Drivers tackled the gravel loop two at a time and drove over jumps and through watersplashes in front of a capacity crowd of 10,000 spectators. There were no major upsets for the lead drivers. Colin McRae won the stage, closely followed by Petter Solberg who took second place for Subaru. Carlos Sainz was third.

There was plenty of drama on the first proper stage of the rally (SS2) - Tommi Makinen became the first major retirement when he clipped a rock with his car 10kms in. His Mitsubishi suffered front-left suspension damage and lost a wheel. Together with Burns and McRae, the Finn was one of the three favourites for the WRC title and his retirement left the way clear for a thrilling battle between the two remaining British hopefuls. Meanwhile Petter Solberg's rally came to an abrupt end after a freak re-fuelling incident. Through no fault of his own, it seems that a problem with the equipment shared by the WRC teams, meant the car was not filled with sufficient petrol. In a surreal turn of events the pair were stranded without fuel 3kms into the stage and forced to retire. Hyundai's Piero Liatti was another victim of the St. Gwynno test, a broken clutch ended his event.

Current World Rally Champion Marcus Gronholm stormed through SS3 to take the win, his teammate Didier Auriol was second, Burns third with McRae just behind in fourth. On the overall leaderboard Colin McRae held the lead, 0.2 seconds in front of Gronholm. Auriol was four seconds back in third and Burns another two seconds back in fourth. Carlos Sainz received a 40-second time penalty for arriving at the start of the stage four minutes late. The Spaniard was delayed making roadside repairs to a brake pipe damaged by a punctured tyre on the previous stage. In the end Sainz drove the next two stages with no front brakes at all.

Colin McRae's Championship charge came to an end 14.5kms into SS4 when he rolled his car end-over-end and into retirement. Colin McRae and co-driver Nicky Grist received cuts and bruises but were otherwise unhurt in the high-speed shunt. With Sainz down in 13th place and Makinen and Colin McRse out of the event, Richard Burns' chances of taking the title had never looked better - instead of needing a win to guarantee victory, Burns now needed to finish fourth or higher. No such luck for his Subaru teammate Markko Martin - he slid wide on a 5th gear corner and slid into some rocks. The impact pushed the front-right wheel back and broke the steering rack. He completed the remaining 10.5kms with broken steering and lost around a minute. The stage was won by Marcus Gronholm, with Auriol second and Burns joint third with Rovanpera.

Gilles Panizzi retired in unusual circumstances at the service that followed the stage. Panizzi and his co-driver (and brother) Herve had stopped to investigate a transmission problem on the stage when Herve was struck in the chest by a rock kicked up by a passing rally car. The pair made it back to service but Herve was not able to carry on. He was subsequently checked over at Swansea hospital and given the all-clear.

Gronholm pulled clear at the top of the overall leaderboard by posting a time 7.6 seconds quicker than the next fastest through SS5, Carlos Sainz. Harri Rovanpera was third through, with Didier Auriol fourth. Sainz was back on fighting form after his car was fixed in service and he began to claw back lost time. Along with Richard Burns, Sainz is the only driver in the series who is able to take the drivers title from McRae. The scenario would require a win from him and a good deal of non-finishes from the competition, which looked highly unlikely at the start of the day, but with so many retirements, who knows.

After some miracle working by the Subaru technicians in service Markko Martin's car was back on SS5, but sadly his return was short-lived and he retired 6kms in when his engine cut-out.

The quickest four through SS6 perfectly reflected the top four overall. Gronholm edged another two seconds in front, Auriol held second and with the pressure for victory off, Burns kept things calmly under control in third - a position he tied with Rovanpera for the second time in the day. Sainz was fifth fastest and moved up to sixth overall one minute 32 seconds off the lead - he was down in 21st after SS2.

On the longest stage of the day - SS7 - Gronholm was fastest again, but Richard Burns was less than a second behind in second. As the light began to fade in the forests Burns showed why he is such a force to be reckoned with. He finished 18 seconds ahead of Didier Auriol and moved up a place on the overall leaderboard to take the Frenchman's second position.

Rovanpera was the pace-setter through the dark and foggy final test of the day (SS8). Burns was second, with Gronholm almost four seconds off the fastest time in third. The slippery conditions caught out Skoda's Roman Kresta who drove his Octavia WRC into a ditch - he retired.

Didier Auriol and Carlos Sainz both spun but had lucky escapes and continued, although Auriol lost his third place overall to Rovanpera.

On the road section to the stage Burn's co-driver, Robert Reid showed some ingenious thinking when his map-light broke - he strapped a small torch to his left thumb to illuminate the notes instead.

Tomorrow's leg starts at 0700hrs when cars leave Cardiff's town centre parc ferme and drive 74kms west back to the central service point at Felindre. Leg two comprises four special stages on the Forest roads and then another circuit around the Super Special stage in the evening making a total competitive distance of 132 kilometres.

Technical Talk - Illuminating facts on lighting:

The Subaru Team's Impreza WRC2001's use extra headlights on some of the darker stages in Monte Carlo, Sweden and San Remo, but of all the rounds in the season, they are needed most on the Rally of Great Britain.

In daylight conditions the Impreza WRC2001 is equipped with four 90mm Hella halogen headlights mounted in carbon-fibre surrounds, but for night stages six additional headlights are added to the front of the car.

Four 190mm Hella xenon gas discharge lights are mounted in a carbon-fibre light pod secured to the bonnet. The gas discharge lights are brighter than halogen units and consume a quarter of the power. The two outer lights project a wide beam, while the two centre lamps fire a strong narrow beam straight ahead. Each lamp costs ?750, and the empty lamp pod ?3,000.

The other two lights are mounted in pods on the front bumper. These are angled so they point outwards and illuminate the edges of the stage. The lamps are the same 190mm diameter as the bonnet mounted items, but bulb-type and beam pattern is down to personal preference. Richard Burns prefers to use a gas discharge lamp with a driving pattern, while Solberg prefers a halogen bulb with a fog pattern.

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