Gronholm clinches dominant win

The Ford driver controlled the entire event, which took place in remarkably rough conditions, winning every stage on Friday as he pulled away from arch rivals Petter Solberg and Sebastien Loeb.

"It was not easy," said Gronholm. "It's such a hard rally, but we had absolutely no problems with the car."

When both Loeb and Solberg had dramatic problems at the end of leg two, Gronholm's comfortable advantage suddenly ballooned into a vast lead, allowing him to cruise through this morning's final stages and win by over two minutes.

Loeb drove even more cautiously than Gronholm today after a major scare late on Saturday, when he was forced to drag his Citroen Xsara back to service on two wheels and a mangled hub after a series of tyre failures.

His continued participation in the rally looked doubtful, but the Kronos mechanics managed to repair the car within the allotted 45 minutes, and Loeb duly rejoined for a careful run to second. The reigning champion still has a 29-point lead in the standings.

Mikko Hirvonen took his second consecutive podium with third place, having driven a deliberately conservative rally. He survived a last gasp scare when his gearbox failed in the final superspecial, forcing Hirvonen to complete the event stuck in second gear.

"It's completely dead, I can't drive the car anymore," said Hirvonen. "We just got it back to the finish. What a finish!"

The contest for the 'best of the rest' placings behind the leading works cars was exceptional, with the OMV Peugeots, the other Kronos Citroens, and privateers Toni Gardemeister, Francois Duval and Jussi Valimaki all in the hunt for points at various stages.

Eventually it was Gardemeister who came through to take fourth, having picked up speed throughout the event as he got to grips with his unfamiliar Astra Citroen Xsara - a car that had left him distinctly underwhelmed at the start of the rally.

With Manfred Stohl rolling his Peugeot out of contention in Sunday's first stage, fifth place came down to a final stage shoot-out between Henning Solberg and Dani Sordo at the Olympic Stadium Superspecial.

Sordo had started the day fourth but lost a minute with an engine glitch in SS14. A change of spark plugs cured the problem, and the JWRC champion charged back to begin the final stage just 3.9 seconds behind Solberg.

The elder Solberg sibling almost lost the place by stalling at the start of the decisive stage, but managed to cling onto fifth by a scant 0.8 seconds.

Petter Solberg had to be content with seventh, having rejoined for leg three under SupeRally rules after a bizarre accident with a non-competing car on Saturday's penultimate road section. The Subaru driver was fastest on all of Sunday's stages and was very pleased with overnight changes to his Impreza's set-up.

The final point went to Xavier Pons after a consistent run in the third Kronos car. Valimaki finished ninth, having dropped out of the top six battle with a time-consuming trip off the road early on Saturday.

Matthew Wilson began the event still suffering from the after-effects of food poisoning, so did well to finish 10th on his Acropolis debut.

"The way I was feeling, it was looking doubtful whether I'd even get through the first stage, so I'm very glad to be here," Wilson said.

Outside the top ten, Chris Atkinson took 11th for Subaru after a nightmare weekend that began with a major differential problem, and also included a steering breakage that led to him retiring from leg two, and further transmission issues today.

"I don't know how we made it, we must be so lucky," said Atkinson at the finish.

Duval had challenged Hirvonen early on Friday before gradually slipping back in his First Motorsport Skoda. Gearbox problems ultimately led to him retiring from leg two, but he rejoined to take 13th behind Harri Rovanpera, who never got to grips with his Red Bull Skoda on this event.

Leading results:

Pos  Driver        Make               Time
 1.  Gronholm      Ford         3h 56:26.8
 2.  Loeb          Citroen        + 2:26.8
 3.  Hirvonen      Ford           + 3:43.8
 4.  Gardemeister  Citroen        + 4:20.8
 5.  H Solberg     Peugeot        + 4:55.6
 6.  Sordo         Citroen        + 4:56.4
 7.  P Solberg     Subaru         + 5:34.4
 8.  Pons          Citroen        + 8:19.0
 9.  Valimaki      Mitsubishi    + 11:28.7
10.  Wilson        Ford          + 13:30.8
11.  Atkinson      Subaru        + 14:01.8
12.  Rovanpera     Skoda         + 14:35.6
13.  Duval         Skoda         + 18:04.4
14.  Aigner        Skoda         + 20:50.9
15.  Vovos         Subaru        + 26:50.3
16.  Kopecky       Skoda         + 28:18.8
17.  Stohl         Peugeot       + 29:43.0
18.  Al-Attiyah    Subaru        + 32:16.5
19.  Pozzo         Mitsubishi    + 32:28.5
20.  Baldacci      Mitsubishi    + 32:30.5