KEY POINTS:
DUBLIN - Ford's Marcus Gronholm has crashed out of Rally Ireland, handing Citroen's Sebastien Loeb the lead and boosting the Frenchman's bid for a fourth successive world championship.
At the end of the first leg, with 10 stages completed, Loeb led Spanish team mate Dani Sordo by 11.2 seconds. The Sligo-based rally, making its championship debut, ends on Sunday.
Gronholm, four points ahead of the Frenchman at the start of the penultimate rally of the season, had led overnight after a short super-special stage in Belfast but smashed into a stone wall on the fourth stage south of the border.
"The accident happened near the finish on a wide, right corner," said the Finn. "I braked for the bend but it was extremely slippery and the car skated off the road.
"I managed to turn it sideways before hitting a stone wall hard. It was a big, big impact because the car stopped immediately."
The wheels on the driver's side were ripped off and officials halted the stage while the crew received medical attention.
Gronholm and co-driver Timo Rautiainen were taken to hospital for precautionary checks and then discharged.
However the team said in a statement that the car's roll cage was too badly damaged for them to restart on Saturday.
The Finn's hopes of leaving the sport with a third title are now hanging in the balance and Loeb is unlikely to repeat the mistake he made in Japan three weeks ago when he crashed out after Gronholm had retired.
"It will be hard to lift the drivers' championship if Sebastien Loeb wins this weekend," said Gronholm. "But there are a lot of kilometres remaining here and on the final round in Britain so I'm not giving up yet."
Loeb had led after the day's opening stage, despite a scare when his car suffered a broken left rear suspension before the start.
"We will need to stay concentrated now because the roads are very muddy and it could be so easy to get caught out," said the Frenchman.
Ford are 34 points clear of Citroen in the manufacturers' standings and, with Finland's Mikko Hirvonen in fourth place, can still wrap up that championship in Ireland.
"I always thought the drivers' title would be decided in Britain and this will be the case," said Ford team boss Malcolm Wilson. "I hope Mikko can score the three points here to secure the manufacturers' title for us.
"That will allow him to drive flat out in Britain to try to help Marcus in his fight for the drivers' title."
- REUTERS
