McRae retires from the Monte Carlo Rally.

Colin McRae has retired from this year's Monte Carlo Rally after stopping on the first stage of the final leg.

The Scotsman came to a halt on SS12, Sospel - La Bollene, with suspected throttle cable problems, after retaking the rally lead on the final stage of yesterday's leg when he opted for the full snow tyres, while then leader Makinen chose intermediates - McRae won the stage and retook the rally lead as a result.

The Ford Focus driver attempted to fix the problem and carried on to the end of the stage but would finish 13minutes down on stage winner Freddy Loix. Makinen finished just 3.4secs behind his teammate, and so regains the rally lead by over a minute from Carlos Sainz.

McRae later retired on the road section between SS12 and SS13 - a miserable end to what had looked set to be a promising start for the Scot in 2001.

The Ford of Francois Delecour has now moved into third overall, the Frenchman having suffered a similar mechanical problem to McRae yesterday (after SS9) when his throttle malfunctioned. The cancellation of SS10 allowed the Ford crews time to fix Delecour's car.

Colin McRae's brother Alister also suffered on SS12 when he had a puncture on his Accent WRC, this was duly changed and the stage completed - but he lost nearly 4mins to Loix.

With 111kms of stages to run today the already high rate of attrition (which includes all the factory Peugeot and Subaru machines) looks set to rise further, although at least the weather has improved - clear, bright skies awaited the drivers at the start of SS12, suggesting today's stages are likely to be dry and fast.

Full stage times to follow...