Finish Rally Finish !?

[Ferg]

I caught the rally coverage on CH4 on friday and it was really good, and then managed to miss the other shows over the weekend, what was the outcome? I heard McRae burnt up or something? [img]http://www.turbosport.co.uk/images/smilies/sad.gif

[Hugh]

Marcus Gronholm claimed his third FIA World Rally Championship win of the year today, and also completed a hat trick of victories at a bright and sunny final day on Rally Finland. The Finn's success has strengthened his championship lead to 17 points. Gronholm enjoyed a comfortable final day, and was handed a further bonus when championship rival Colin McRae was forced to retire from third place, after his Ford Focus caught fire at the end of stage 20. Fellow Briton Richard Burns was runner-up, and enjoyed a similarly straightforward run to the finish. The main battle of the day took place between Subaru's Petter Solberg and Ford's Carlos Sainz, who fought tooth and nail for what became third place. Exuberance overcame experience on this occasion, as Solberg took the place by a scant 4.2s after three days, and more than 400 kilometres of competitive driving. Markko Martin took fifth place, and Tommi Makinen finally got himself into the points on the day that counts. He finished sixth. Other notable finishers include Peugeot privateer Sebastian Lindholm, in an excellent seventh, and former world champion Timo Salonen in 14th. The 50-year-old made an enjoyable one-off return to the sport in another privately entered 206 WRC.

[wes]

I saw McRae's focus catch fire right a the end of the stage, it was smoking 20 seconds before the end and he kept going to the finish [img]http://www.turbosport.co.uk/images/smilies/clint.gif Some big ass flames from under the rear of the car, apparently a hydraulic pipe had come off, the marshalls couldn't put it out and the car burnt to a crisp [img]http://www.turbosport.co.uk/images/smilies/clint.gif

[Ferg]

Cheers Guys! [img]http://www.turbosport.co.uk/images/smilies/smile.gif

Nightmare about Colin, I was so hoping he would win after being up close with his car!

An interesting thing is the pic on my our local club site showing the rear area of the actual car. Something must have burnt under there. What I wondered about when I took the photo was the line connecting the two fuel tanks (I presume thats what it did) it didn't look good so close to the exhaust!! [img]http://www.turbosport.co.uk/images/smilies/clint.gif