Burns mounts fightback

World champion Richard Burns fought back today to give himself hope of claiming a podium position in the San Remo Rally.

The Englishman lost third yesterday to Subaru’s Petter Solberg and looked destined to take fourth at best after the Norwegian set his third consecutive fastest stage time this morning.

But on today’s second stage Peugeot racer Burns cut six seconds out of Solberg’s advantage to trail by just under 16 seconds going into this afternoon’s final two stages.

Burns said: “If I risk everything I need to make up a lot of time. Trying harder won’t necessarily help.”

The Englishman admitted his hopes of retaining the World Rally Championship crown are almost over.

He added: “I’ll be second after this rally and it’s going to be tough because he will have pulled out a bit on me. Last year we were gaining towards the end of the season but this time it is different.”

Solberg refused to be complacent after seeing Burns chip away at his lead.

He said: “It’s quite a lot but overall he took four seconds on me so I’ll be trying.”

At the front, World Rally Championship leader Marcus Gronholm ate into Peugeot team-mate Gilles Panizzi’s advantage at the top of the timesheets.

After losing just over a second on today’s opening stage, Gronholm responded by setting the fastest time on the second to bring the deficit down to 20 seconds.

But with only two stages remaining that represents a difficult obstacle, especially as the Finn’s six points for second would all but seal the World Rally Championship title.

Colin McRae’s disappointing weekend continued this morning as the Scot concentrated on merely reaching the finishing line in his Ford Focus.

The 1995 world champion gave up hope of a points score yesterday after a string of problems on the first two days of competition dropped him into the lower half of the top 10.

And his fortunes did not improve today. He clocked the 13th fastest time on stage 15 and improved marginally to record the 11th quickest effort on 16.

That left the Scotsman down in eighth position and needing a miracle to overhaul the two and a half minutes separating him from a points finish.

Matters were made worse for McRae by the performance of team-mate Markko Martin in the third Focus.

The Estonian comfortably holds fifth place from Spanish Citroen man Jesus Puras.