UNOFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 10 - MARGAM

1st (1) Marcus Gronholm/Timo Rautainen (Peugeot)2.02.09.3

2nd (5) Richard Burns/Robert Reid (Subaru) 2.03.18.9

3rd (16) Harri Rovanpera/Risto Pietilainen (Peugeot)2.03.35.5

4th (3) Carlos Sainz/Luis Moya (Ford) 2.05.09.1

5th (10) Alister McRae/Dave Senior (Accent) 2.05.43.0

6th (11) Armin Schwarz/Manfred Hiemer (Octavia) 2.07.04.3

7th (17) Mark Higgins/Bryan Thomas (Ford) 2.07.16.2

8th (9) Kenneth Eriksson/Staffan Parmander (Accent)2.07.17.1

9th (2) Didier Auriol.Denis Giraudet (Peugeot) 2.08.10.4

10th (12) Bruno Thiry/Stephan Prevot (Octavia() 2.08.44.2

Carlos Sainz/Luis Moya in the Ford Focus have withdrawn from this Network Q Rally GB following an accident on stage 11 (Brechfa 2). The Spanish driver was in 4th place overall, but left the road on what has been described as a long hairpin corner. The following statement was issued by John Horton, the National Media Delegate for the rally at just after 3pm today.

"We have received a report from the Network Q Rally of GB rally office that there has been an incident in special stage 11 involving car No.3. The stage was immediately stopped and cancelled.

The Medical Officer in attendance advises that there are 15 casualties involved. All medical facilities on the stage and 2 air ambulances were deployed immediately.

Special stage 12 has been cancelled and all cars are returning to the service area at Felindre.

Ford Motor Company have withdrawn Sainz and Moya from the rally, due to the serious nature of the incident."

Statement end..

Richard Burns, in common with the other top drivers, was deeply upset and commented when he arrived here at service "It puts everything in perspective. I just hope that everyone involved will be OK. I'm not at the moment thinking about tomorrow or the world rally title. I don't think spectator behavious has been any worse than previous years." Outgoing world champion Marcus Gronholm commented "People are standing in not so good places, in the fog it is very difficult". Armin Schwarz said "I feel very sorry for everyone concerned, but so many people are standing straight ahead under braking, and this was a very slippy place, it could happen to anyone, and yet there were many marshals".

The above leaderboard, as can be seen, is taken from the previous stage. Since that, Freddy Loix has retired on a road section when his gearbox once again gave trouble. An up date on the Super 1600 situation is that Niall McShea managed to snatch back some time from Sebastian Loeb in the race for the Super 1600s but he is still over 2 minutes behind the French Champion. Dallavilla has slipped to 3rd.

Raymon Ferreyros continues to lead gpN by 30s from Backlund, with David Higgins just 2s further back. 

BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON