World championship leader Colin McRae was back in the lead at the Rally of Argentina after three of yesterday's eight stages.
The Subaru driver held an advantage of four seconds over Mitsubishi rival Tommi Makinen, whom he had trailed by almost 15 seconds overnight.
McRae won the opening super special stage on Wednesday but lost time on the first leg when he suffered problems with spectators near the road on the day's second section, allowing world cham-pion Makinen to grab the lead.
The Scot's younger brother, Alister, made it a double for the McRae clan as his British Championship-winning Volkswagen continued to set the Formula 2 pace.
After the third of yesterday's eight stages, McRae and his Golf GTI were maintaining a healthy lead over their nearest rival, Seat's Oriol Gomez, and had moved into eleventh place overall.
Lanark-based McRae and his co-driver, David Senior, started the second leg in style, setting fastest F2 time on the 14.5km Mataderos-El Mirador stage, then eased their pace a little, allowing Gomez to reduce his deficit from 48 to 40 seconds.
A minor starter-motor glitch early in the day was the SBG Sport team's only reported problem, and this was easily cured.
''We're not feeling any pressure,'' said Alister. ''The car's going very well and we've got plenty in reserve. There's a very long way to go yet in this rally, and obviously we're not going to take any risks.''
The Golf of Austrian Kris Rosenberger holds third place among the two-litre World Cup runners, with Hyundai's Kenneth Eriksson a distant fourth. Pre-rally favourite Harri Rovanpera (Seat) was one of yesterday's retirements.
qPaul Stewart Racing hopes to get its Formula 3 Championship bid back on track this weekend when the team heads to Croft near Darlington for round eight.
PSR's top driver Luciano Burti, third behind leader and fellow Brazilian Enrique Bernoldi, hopes to build on the second place he achieved last weekend at Silverstone. Burti's team-mate Mario Haberfeld knows he needs to score points if he isn't to lose further ground on Bernoldi.
For Stewart, who will be overseeing his Stewart Grand Prix team in Monaco this weekend, the Croft round marks a significant race in the championship. ''We've almost made this title our own over the past few years but if we're to stop Enrique winning it this year we're going to have to start producing more consistent results,'' he said.
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