Colin McRae crashes out in NZ.

Colin McRae and Nicky Grist, leading Ford drivers in sixth place after three special stages of the New Zealand Rally, retired their Focus RS after going off the road 1.5km from the end of Whaanga Coast.

"I misheard a pace note and went into a downhill right hand bend in third gear instead of second," explained McRae. "We slid off and hit a fence post. It wasn't even a car's length off the road but the post damaged the radiator and when we tried to get the car out, the engine started to overheat. I didn't want to damage the engine any further so I turned it off. I'm not sure we would have got back on the road anyway but, if we had, I don't think the car would have reached the service park."

Team-mates Markko Martin and Michael Park found the fast and flowing New Zealand roads very much to their liking as they made huge strides up the leaderboard in their Focus RS World Rally Car.

The 26-year-old Estonian driver climbed from 11th to seventh after posting top six times on both the 16.62km Te Papatapu and the classic 29.60km Whaanga Coast speed tests.

However, Martin was unhappy with his times and feels there is more to come from both himself and his Focus RS.

"I'm not finding any real grip and the car is sliding around a lot," he said. "I don't think it's the tyres so we'll change the anti-roll bars and dampers to see if that helps. I'm not really enjoying it at the moment. I can't find the speed I know we're capable of but I'm just not sure why. Having said that, we're moving up the order so that's good."

The third car, of Carlos Sainz and Luis Moya, remains eighth, 12.7sec behind their team-mates, after spinning their Focus RS in Whaanga Coast.

"We spun after about 24km and the car ended up facing in the wrong direction," said Sainz. "The road was narrow and it was difficult to spin the car back in the right direction again so we dropped about 15 seconds."