Drivers critical after animal trouble.

Sebastien Loeb's co-driver, Daniel Elena has hit out at the organisers of the Rally Mexico, following several incidents with animals on the road during the first and second legs of the event.

The most notorious stage during the event for four-legged foes was on SS13, when around 10-15 cows ventured into the middle of the road, something that affected a number of competitors - including Manfred Stohl who actually hit one, while Chris Atkinson lost both of his mirrors when he tried to thread his way through.

Marcus Gronholm also had issues but on SS10, when he came across 20 goats in the middle of the road, hitting one of them, while Petter Solberg hit a dog on one of the stages on the first loop on day two.

"The roads were okay, but on day one, on SS6, we saw four dogs, then on Saturday we had the cows. Manfred touched it and Petter touched a dog. It's very dangerous," said Elena, when asked the problems in the post-event press conference. "If you don't want to compromise the result, the solution is to check for animals on the stages."

Petter Solberg's co-driver, Phil Mills meanwhile confirmed that a number of the drivers and teams had spoken to the organisers following the second leg - something that seemingly had an affect as there was no reported problems on the final day.

"On Saturday especially we had problems," Mills added. "On every stage we saw a dog, a donkey, a goat, a cow... everything! I actually got quite concerned at one point. We've all seen what hitting an animal at high speed can do. We spoke to the organisers and today [Sunday] there was nothing at all. Hopefully that problem has gone away now."

Rally Mexico, for the record, had a 'cow incident' last year too - when Jani Paasonen was forced to retire on the final stage when he hit one in his Skoda Fabia, which had been frightened by a helicopter.

Mexico is by no means alone though in having had 'animal issues', in New Zealand last season, Armin Schwarz hit three turkeys when they ran across the road, while in Australia, Solberg and Mills lost a potential win after hitting a kangaroo. What's clear is that WRC cars and animals don't mix!