Peugeot's Marcus Gronholm gave his chances of winning his fifth rally this season a huge boost with his first stage victory of day two of the Rally of Australia.
The Finn extended his lead over Petter Solberg in the Subaru by a further six seconds after the Norwegian broke his front damper. Gronholm now has a 38.2 second lead at the top after Special Stage 16.
Gronholm's team-mate Harri Rovanpera drove the third fastest time to maintain the pressure on Solberg but the battle is on between Ford's Carlos Sainz and Subaru's Tommi Makinen.
The Spaniard gained almost four seconds on the Finn who is chasing him for fourth spot on the leaderboard.
The main casualty was Mitsubishi's Jani Paasonen who rolled his Lancer midway through the stage.
Although he got the car going again he lost over a minute allowing Juha Kankkunen to move into 10th overall.
Earlier in the day, Colin McRae's rally came to a sudden end with terminal damage to the radiator of the Scot's Ford Focus following a hard landing on Special Stage 14.
McRae's car kicked high in the air over a cattle grid near the end of the stage and slammed hard into the ground on its nose, only narrowly escaping being pitched into a roll.
Although McRae was able to complete the stage with the third-fastest time it was immediately clear that the car could not continue with two stages to go before service.
He said: "I'm disappointed because we'd just managed to find our rhythm and were starting to put some good times together."
His retirement ended the British interest in the race as Richard Burns retired yesterday with clutch failure.
Britain's leading lady driver Natalie Barratt also pulled out with gear selection problems and McRae's younger brother Alister was a non-starter as he is still recovering from a mountain bike accident that forced him out of San Remo and caused him to withdraw from New Zealand.
PA