However, a number of other Irish drivers have fallen by the wayside.

Patrick Elliott retired his Subaru Impreza with turbo failure and Patrick Price crashed his Mitsubishi out on the final loop of yesterday's 15 stages.

Also out is Dubliner, George Tracey, his Subaru blew its engine on S.S. 14.

Rory O'Connor is just outside the top 10.

The rally, which finishes today with five more stages, is being led by the Toyota Corolla WRC of Pieter Tsjoen from the Subaru WRC of David Loix.

One Irish crew, Eamonn Boland/Anthony Nestor have returned home after their recce car was stolen in a dramatic hijack on Friday evening.

As the Wexford/Limerick pair were entering one of the streets in Charleroi, they were forced out of their car at gunpoint by a three-member balaclava clad gang.

After qualifying on the third row of the grid, Matt Griffin got off to a bad start in the fourth round of the British Formula Renault Championship at Silverstone.

However, the Cork teenager battled his was back through the race and finished a creditable sixth.

It was his best finish to date, his Ballycurrane Limited/O'Donoghue packaging Renault performed well over the closing laps.

Fellow Irish driver, Robbie Coleman was 15th.

The race was won by Danny Watts from Carl Breeze and Richard Antinucci.

Richard Burns will start tomorrow's final leg of the Cyprus Rally with a three second lead over fellow Briton, Colin McRae, who played a cat and mouse game within the Oxford driver in order to start second on the road tomorrow. Marcus Gronholm is third with Carlos Sainz (Ford Focus WRC), Toshiro Arai (Subaru) and Freddy Loix completing the top six. Loix broke the front left driveshaft of his Mitsubishi on one of today's stages and lost over three minutes.