World Rally S2000 Championship leader Craig Breen (Ford Fiesta S2000) seeks to consolidate his position in Rally Sweden, which gets under way in earnest this morning.

WITH five out of six fastest stage times, Sebastien Loeb (Citroen DS3) extended his overall lead in the Monte Carlo Rally to a minute and 37.2 seconds as the battle for second between Dani Sordo (MINI WRC) and Petter Solberg (Fiesta WRC) hotted up.

IRISH interest in next month’s Monte Carlo Rally, the opening round of the 2012 World Rally Championship, has been severely diluted as Tyrone’s Kris Meeke and his Kerry co-driver, Paul Nagle do not appear on the 89-strong entry list that was announced earlier this week.

THE Irish contingent in Rally Estonia, that begins today, has been whittled down to two drivers following the withdrawal of Kris Meeke and his co-driver Paul Nagle in their Mini John Cooper Works WRC.