Justin Dale and co-driver Andrew Bargery were forced to withdraw from the Network Q Rally of Great Britain yesterday.

The Dale/Bargery Mitsubishi Lancer rolled on stage two, dropping the Hove pair from 21st to 41st, more than three minutes off the leader. They contested the third stage but slipped back to 77th.

At the Felindre service area, a technical inspection revealed that the car's safety cage had been damaged and they were forced to retire.

Dale said: "I was braking at the end of a long straight, flat out in sixth gear, and approached a left turn but as we came around the bend I was blinded by the sun.

"We rolled several times and the car looked a mess but the radiator had also been holed. We got out of the stage and drove back to the service area in Felindre having to stop and top up the radiator several times with water from streams.

"But the officials looked at the roll cage inside the car but deemed it too badly damaged for us to continue. It's a very frustrating end for us."

The 1,024-mile event roared in to action on Thursday evening and Dale and Bargery finished 21st overall at the end of the first day.

John Lloyd, 47, from West Marden near Chichester, finished 57th overall and 11th in class on day one in his David Sutton Motorsport-prepared Mitsubishi Lancer.

Maurice Hamilton, the Observer newspaper and BBC Radio Five Live Formula One Grand Prix correspondent who lives in Rudgwick, placed 80th and first in class with driver Tony Jardine, ITV's Formula One expert, in an MGZR.