UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 9 - RESOLVEN

1st (1) Marcus Gronholm/Timo Rautainen (Peugeot)1.45.43.1

2nd (5) Richard Burns/Robert Reid (Subaru) 1.46.40.4

3rd (16) Harri Rovanpera/Risto Pietilainen (Peugeot)1.46.42.4

4th (3) Carlos Sainz/Luis Moya (Ford) 1.47.48.6

5th (10) Alister McRae/Dave Senior (Accent) 1.48.52.2

6th (11) Armin Schwarz/Manfred Hiemer (Octavia) 1.50.08.4

7th (9) Kenneth Eriksson/Staffan Parmander (Accent) 1.50.10.1

8th (17) Mark Higgins/Bryan Thomas (Ford) 1.50.23.8

9th (8) Freddy Loix/Sven Smeets (Lancer) 1.49.39.4

10th (2) Didier Auriol.Denis Giraudet (Peugeot) 1.51.07.2

Neil Wearden 11th: Bruno Thiry 12th: De Mevius 13th:

Outgoing World Champion Marcus Gronholm is certainly finishing his year with a flourish - fastest through the Resolven test this morning. The Peugeot pilote stopped the clocks on 25.28.1, not bad at all for a 28.8 mile stage in the early morning mist. Richard Burns had a drama at the early morning re-start in Cardiff, his Impreza would not fire up and Richard had to push the car out of parc ferme, and replace a couple of spark plugs himself. He managed to get the Subaru going and arrived here at St Felindre on time, and unpenalised. Richard was 4th fastest on this first Saturday stage, Resoslven, 20s slower than Gronholm. Rovanpera was 2nd fastest, 7s down on his Peugeot team mate. Carlos Sainz 3rd fastest, 18s back on Marcus. There was a suggestion that Carlos' Focus had sustained a puncture when he was trying to pass Didier Auriol in the stage, but if he did have a damaged Pirelli, it certainly didn't reflect in the Spaniard's stage time. Auriol's accident happened not long after the start of the stage, and he lost over 3 minutes, dropping from an overnight 4th to 10th.

Another story from Resolven is that Mark HIggins' Focus has lost 5th gear, but it has not cost too much time so far.

117 cars started the rally from Cardiff on Friday - 79 cars restarted this morning. The final 2 Friday stages (Brechfa & Trawscoed) took a heavy toll. In the mist and darkness many cars went off the road. Gwyndaf Evans got his SEAT wedged between the trees in stage 7 and couldn't get out. Roman Kresta was 15th but he also stopped in stage 8. Gavin Cox's new Lancer Evo7 stopped in stage 8. Stephen Harron hit a bank and broke the suspension on his Subaru. Steve Head stopped in stage 8, Simon Thomas/Liz Jordan were leading their class, but they put their Peugeot off the road.

David Higgins was the fastest of the gpN runners through Resolven, 11.5s up on category leader Ferreyros, with Backlund 3rd a further 7.4s down on the Peruvian. Sebastian Loeb continues to lead the Super 1600's in 19th o/a.

Natalie Barrett is the only lady driver in the rally, she is still going but well back after many troubles, including at one point the propshaft coming adrift, and co driver Roger Freeman quick wittedly replaced the missing bolts with two out of the seat belt mounting bracket to keep them going! More news later..BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON