[SJ Spode]

The difficulty seems to stem from the fact that the road sections remain (a throwback to the old road rally trials). The rules state that the cars / crews must observe the rules of the road in each country (so you see the crews paying motorway tolls on some of the European events), and that includes speed, car safety/ integrity etc.

The problem is that these rules are enforced radically differently by the Police in each country. We've all seen cars in a worse state than Marcus' hobbling into service for repair on the Safari or other events; allowing the drivers to remain in the rally.

It's the same with the speeding. Tommi must have been seriously tempted to have broken the speed limit / other rules of the road to get to the stage start in time when he was stuck in traffic.

So something needs to be done to bring consistency in. Maybe the cars don't do the road sections and are transported between special stages on trailers. Or maybe the local Police get more supportive. I don't think it would be beyond the realms of possibility for Marcus to have been escorted at a reasonable speed by the Police back to service, and only stopped if the damage had started to cut gouges in the road surface.