PEUGEOT's Markko Martin will miss the Rally of Japan after the crash that killed his British co-driver Michael Park last weekend.

"Martin's presence there is totally unthinkable," the Eurosport website quoted Peugeot team boss Jean-Pierre Nicolas as saying. "What's happened is still too raw."

Estonian Martin was uninjured after his car left the road and hit a tree on the passenger side in South Wales on the 15th stage of the Rally of Britain. Park, 39, died instantly.

Nicolas said Martin remembered nothing of the accident.

"Markko has been affected very much psychologically," said Nicolas, who explained that Martin had been to see his co-driver's widow.

"He also wanted to see the car and go back to the scene of the accident to try to understand what happened," said Nicolas.

Peugeot havs yet to confirm their participation in Japan, the next rally from September 30 to October 2, and has asked the governing FIA for more time to make a decision.

Citroen's world champion, Sebastien Loeb, who deliberately took time penalties to avoid winning the race and his second title in such circumstances, said the sport needs to do more to increase safety. "The cars are well designed, solid, but one can see that this is not sufficient," he said.

"There is always a compromise between safety and weight. One can ask whether the cars haven't become too powerful and too sophisticated. For us, they are very easy to take to the limit. And to be in front, you are on the limit all the time...the speeds have perhaps become too high.



"You will never avoid deaths in motorsport, but we must still do more. "If we have to add 30 kilos to the roof because it makes it safer, then we should do it, impose it on everyone and everyone would be in agreement," he said. "There are surely things to find, to optimise, to improve teams' safety."

Reuters