McRae seals Acropolis win

McRae won the rally by 23.1 seconds

Colin McRae won the Acropolis Rally by a margin of 23.1 seconds from his Ford Focus team-mate Carlos Sainz.

Sainz, who had passed overnight leader McRae to lead the event, took second spot with Finland's Juha Kankkunen in a Subaru Impreza coming third, in this the seventh round of the world championship.

The Scotsman had held the lead since Friday's special stage, but only had a 48 second lead over Sainz coming into the final day.

The Spaniard had closed the gap to 30 seconds earlier on Sunday in his Ford Focus, and then squeezed past McRae to lead by 43 seconds.

Britain's Richard Burns was forced to retire from the final leg of the rally due to turbocharger problems.

Failed

The World Championship leader, lying in third place overall in Greece, suffered from a fault in his turbocharger during the 13th special stage of the seventh event of the championships, which meant that his aim to hold to the the Acropolis crown had failed.

The Englishman has already won three of the first six rally events on the calendar, Kenya, Portugal and most recently Argentina.

On Saturday, France's Didier Auriol and Finland's Marcus Gronholm joined Tommi Makinen, by withdrawing from the event.

Seat driver Auriol suffered from suspension damage on stage six and by stage nine, the suspension of Gronholm's Peugeot and engine problems, meant that he also had to retire.

It was a bad day for Seat, as Finn Toni Gardemeister called it a day after a broken steering wheel ruined his charge.

Leading results of the Acropolis Rally on Sunday:

1. Colin McRae (Britain) Ford 4 hours 56 minutes 54.8 seconds
2.. Carlos Sainz (Spain) Ford 23.1 seconds behind
3. Juha Kankkunen (Finland) Subaru 06.38.3
4. Toshihiro Arai (Japan) Subaru 7:40.8
5. Armin Schwarz (Germany) Skoda 9:11.0
6. Abdullah Bakhashab (Saudi Arabia) Toyota 12:54.9
7. Jean-Pierre Richelmi (Monaco) Subaru 13:33.3
8. Frederic Dor (France) Subaru 13:59.8
9. Francois Delecour (France) Peugeot 15:12.3
10. John Papadimitriou (Greece) Subaru 16:21.6