The Scot went into the final day of the treacherous event with a narrow lead over Peugeot's Marcus Gronholm, but McRae rolled his Focus twice to throw away any chances of a win.

The first mistake was prompted by an error by his team, who had given him an incorrect signal about the size of his lead during the final day's first stage.

As a result, McRae eased off in the second part of the stage thinking his lead was bigger than it was, only to realise his error at the end of the run.

That meant he was obliged to push harder than he wanted to on the second stage, during which he rolled.

The lost time handed the lead to Gronholm, and McRae finished the job by rolling again two stages later. He ended the rally in sixth place.

That is no help to his championship challenge - he is now 25 points behind Gronholm, who has won every loose-surface rally since last year's Rally of Finland.

But McRae shrugged off the error.

He said: "It was raining heavily when we rolled a second time. I was driving quite tidily, but just got caught out.

"At least we got a point which we deserved after all we've been through."

Gronholm moves on to 31 points in the championship, with Gilles Panizzi second on 20 points.

"I'm really delighted to take this win because it shows we have made good progress with the car in rougher conditions," said Gronholm.

"It's been one of the toughest events I've ever seen, but we haven't had any real problems."

After flipping his car a second time, McRae was down to seventh and had to drive his heart out to steal the final championship point from Germany's Armin Schwarz.

A tense final-stage battle fell to Richard Burns after Subaru's Tommi Makinen spun, allowing the Brit to secure Peugeot's fourth consecutive one-two finish.

Burns said: "Colin was strong here, but you also have to be strong not to make mistakes.

"I had a lot to learn when I started this rally and I drove with that in mind.

"It's a fantastic result for the team and we didn't necessarily expect such a good result."

Peugeot are now so far ahead in the manufacturers' championship that it will be at least the Safari Rally in July before they can be overtaken.

The only good news for McRae is that the next event is Argentina, where he won last year.