McCrae facing fight for solos drive

Colin McRae has admitted his rally future is hanging by a thread after he was dropped by Citroen for next season.

The 1995 world champion faces a battle to find around £3m (€4.2m) to fund his own drive with one of the major teams for 2004.

“I’m working on it at the moment,” said the 35-year-old Scot who has paid the price of the new ruling introduced by the governing body which restricts teams to two drivers who have won rallies.

“The ruling’s still a bit unstable – the FIA are still playing around with it a bit so it makes it very difficult to know where to start.

“Hopefully by the end of next week we will have a clearer picture of what it’s going to be like next year and then we can start working on it.

“It’s probably going to mean finding some additional funding to run another car, a car with one of the main teams.

“It’s difficult enough to find an additional sponsor, but to find sponsors that are willing to pay for the whole program and obviously a fee as well is going to be very difficult – especially at this late point in the season.

“I’m going to explore every avenue possible before the start of next season but my back could be against the wall a bit.”

McRae joined Citroen from Ford this season hoping to challenge for the world title but is back in seventh position.

He has lost out to Sainz, the two-time former world champion, who has proved more consistent in the Xsara and is equal second in the championship just seven points behind Richard Burns.

Sainz has agreed another one year deal as partner to Sebastien Loeb who is contracted until 2005.

“I was told before the Rally of Australia,” added McRae, who holds the record of 25 rally wins with Sainz. “My options are now severely limited.

“The other hope of remaining in the World Championship is for a team like Ford or Peugeot to look at their line-ups for next year and realise both look weak but I cannot see that happening.”