Sebastien Loeb has crashed out of the Rally d'Italia lead on Friday's opening stage.
The World Champion had begun the day just one second ahead of his Citroen teammate Mikko Hirvonen, but went off the road five kilometres onto Monte Lerno. Citroen reported that Loeb had broken his DS3's steering in the incident and was out for the day.
"We hit some rocks at the outside of a corner," said Loeb. "I felt that the steering was damaged and tried to continue. But we had to stop."
The drama left Hirvonen leading by 15sec over Petter Solberg's Ford.
Completing a bad stage for Citroen, its Junior team driver Thierry Neuville – who had begun the day fourth – lost six minutes when he rolled. The Belgian also injured a hand when trying to get the car back on its wheels.