VILLA CARLOS PAZ (Argentina), May 10: Carlos Sainz continued to lead the Rally of Argentina for Citroen after the first of Saturday’s nine stages was cancelled and the second disrupted by crowd problems.

The 14th stage of the rally, over 23.02-km at Capilla Del Monte, was abandoned because some of the crowd were standing in dangerous positions and no times were counted.

The next stage was brought to a halt for the same reason after many of the top competitors had already completed the course.

World champion Marcus Gronholm set the quickest time of six minutes 33.7 seconds, and seven competitors who were unable to complete the run were awarded the same time as the Finnish Peugeot driver.

Leading positions (after 15 of 25 stages):

1. Carlos Sainz (Spain) Citroen 2 hours 00 minutes 34.9 seconds; 2. Markko Martin (Estonia) Ford 22.4 seconds behind; 3. Richard Burns (Britain) Peugeot 40.1; 4. Harri Rovanpera (Finland) Peugeot 41; 5. Sebastien Loeb (France) Citroen 50.2; 6. Marcus Gronholm (Finland) Peugeot 1:04.0; 7. Petter Solberg (Norway) Subaru 2:51.1; 8. Francois Duval (Belgium) Ford 2:56.8; 9. Armin Schwarz (Germany) Hyundai 3:21.3; 10. Didier Auriol (France) Skoda 3:24.0.—Reuters