Petter Solberg's hopes of a shock victory in the Acropolis Rally have ended after he suffered broken suspension on stage 11.

The former world champion had been closing on leader Mikko Hirvonen, and had got the gap down to 21.9 seconds when he sustained the damage. He then lost two minutes limping through the stage.

Solberg tried hard to repair his self-run Citroen Xsara at the stage end, but his efforts seemed to be in vain and his team reported that the Norwegian would have to retire. However Solberg continued to work on the car on the road section, and managed to patch the Xsara up sufficiently to start the day's final stage at reduced pace.

His delay moves Sebastien Ogier up to an incredible second for the Citroen Junior team. Mads Ostberg would have been in line to pick up third place, but his Adapta Subaru also stopped on SS11.

That means that Ford number two Jari-Matti Latvala is set to be elevated back to third, just five stages after he went off the road and dropped from first to 11th place.