The Rally of Australia will go down as one of Colin McRae's greatest disappointments, after he had threatened on the last day to win it against all the odds.

The Scot started the final day in sixth place and with his World Championship hopes dead. Yet he bounced back by using the one card left up his sleeve. Letting Carlos Sainz and Tommi Makinen clear the track of debris before him, McRae reeled in his rivals, turning a one-minute deficit into a threesecond lead with only two of 24 stages to go.

Victory would have made McRae the title favourite but his Subaru's turbocharger broke scarcely five miles from the finish of the 874mile rally and his title chances disappeared as a relieved Makinen sneaked past Sainz.

Makinen's success was far from clear-cut, as he was penalised one minute for a false start until Mitsubishi protested. Toyota made a counter-appeal yesterday evening, then withdrew it on the ground that it would be better to decide the World Championship in the RAC Rally on November 21-24 than at an FIA tribunal in Paris.