Colin McRae's hopes of securing the World Rally Championship tomorrow took a severe blow after a superb performance from current title holder Marcus Gronholm in today's second leg of the Telstra Rally Australia in Perth. The Finn won six of the seven outback stages scheduled for today to retain his lead and could have extended his advantage further only for the cancellation of the longest stage of the rally due to an accident involving one of McRae's Ford team-mates, Francois Delecour, 22 kilometres into the 13th stage.
Delecour escaped injury but his co-driver, Daniel Grataloup, was airlifted to hospital where his condition was later described as stable and satisfactory despite having broken some of his ribs, a collarbone and shoulder blade as well as a puncturing a lung.
Gronholm now leads by 34.3 seconds over Englishman Richard Burns and, accidents apart, should take first spot on the podium tomorrow afternoon. Burns is 19.9 seconds ahead of third-placed Didier Auriol, a Peugeot team-mate of Gronholm. Title contendors, McRae and Tommi Makinen, tied for the lead coming into this penultimate round of the championship, are fifth and sixth respectively going into tomorrow's final leg.
Filed by Amanda Fennelly
