Championship leader Colin McRae headed his fellow Briton Richard Burns in the Rally of Britain yesterday to secure the overnight lead in the world title-deciding round.
Scot McRae, in a Ford and starting alongside his British rival on parallel tracks, beat the Subaru driver by 2.5s over the 2.4km rallysprint circuitin Cardiff's docklands.
McRae's time of 2m 10.1s gave him a slender 0.1s lead over Norwegian Petter Solberg, in a Subaru.
McRae's Spanish team-mate and former world champion Carlos Sainz, who has a distant chance of the world title mathematically, was third quickest in 2m 10.8s.
McRae leads the championship with 42 points, one more than Finn Tommi Makinen, in a Mitsubishi, and two clear of Burns, who has won the British rally for the last three years.
