McRae rues tyre error

12 April 2012

A poor tyre choice cost former World Rally champion Colin McRae a top four spot on the opening day of the Rally of Turkey.

The Scotsman was standing in for injured world champion and series leader Sebastien Loeb in the Kronos Total Citroen team. McRae, trying to maintain Citroen's lead in the manufacturers' championship standings in Loeb's absence, was lying fourth when he expected the conditions to dry out on stage eight.

But the stage was muddier than McRae predicted and he struggled for grip on a day when bad weather had already forced three of the first four stages to be cancelled, reducing the event from 19 to 16 stages.

McRae and fellow Citroen driver Dani Sordo had earlier struggled for grip with wet weather tyres on stages which were drying out. But the switch to tyres which they thought would better suit the conditions backfired as they encountered mud late in the day.

They were told by their team that stage eight would be drying out and McRae was not happy with the information he had been given.

McRae said: "We had the wrong information. We were told that the stage was drying up and it was wet all the way through."

Marcus Gronholm did his best to take advantage of Loeb's absence after the Frenchman broke his arm in a mountain biking accident.

BP Ford driver Gronholm was in command after stage eight with just the super special stage at Akdeniz University in Anatolia to run.

The Finn led from the Subaru Impreza of Norway's Petter Solberg who took his second win of the day of stage eight. Mikko Hirvonen, of Finland, was third in the second BP Ford as Solberg's brother Henning stood fourth in the standings in the OMV Peugeot.

McRae's tyre troubles had dropped him to seventh behind Finland's Kosti Katajamaki in the Stobart Ford and the Subaru of Australian Chris Atkinson. Gronholm had earlier won stages five and six to increase his lead to 37 seconds.

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