Mcrae and Pirelli maintain their Title Bid

Colin McRae (Ford-Pirelli) finished fourth on the first WRC Rallye Deutschland today. Thanks to the debut WRC victory for Sebastien Loeb minimising the points difference among the leading title contenders, the Scot has maintained the pressure on World Championship leader Marcus Gronholm with four rallies left to go in this year's series.

The Pirelli teams completed three days of very different road surfaces without problems with the PZero tyre options, Tommi Makinen (Subaru) and Markko Martin (Ford) especially making excellent use of the new RX dry asphalt racer to recover from technical difficulties yesterday to score points for their respective teams. The new tyre has delivered consistent performance over all three days on what has been a technically demanding event to secure grip on so many variations of surface. Carlos Sainz (Ford) looked set for a top five placing today until he stalled his engine on the startline of the first stage and lost two minutes before he could get under way again.

The series stays on asphalt for the 11th round in San Remo next month before returning to gravel for the final three events in New Zealand, Australia and Britain. The McRae-Pirelli combination has won each of these events in the past