Hirvonen extends lead in Norway

The Finn dominated the long first stage of the morning, and he has vowed to keep pushing in a bid to extend his lead.

"Being flat out the whole time is not easy," he said. "But I will keep going flat out, because they are still quite close."

Gronholm is nearly 20 seconds adrift of his team mate now, and he was disappointed to lose time in SS10.

"I was a little bit cautious and the notes were not so good," said Gronholm, who is still under pressure from Sebastien Loeb.

Loeb won SS10 to keep himself within half a minute of Hirvonen, but the Finn said that he was cautious on the stage, and he is confident that he can keep the world champion at bay.

Petter Solberg is in a lonely fourth place on his home event, but the Subaru driver is happy to be cruising in the points.

"We just have to stay calm and not think about things," he said. "We just have to enjoy it and finish the rally."

Gigi Galli inherited fifth place from Toni Gardemeister after the Finn went off at a junction in SS9 and lost more than 20 minutes.

Chris Atkinson also lost a lot of time when his car got stuck in a ditch, and the Aussie admitted that his rally was over from a competitive standpoint.

Henning Solberg remains in sixth place as he tries to stay cautious, while Jari-Matti Latvala is up to seventh.

Manfred Stohl is currently in the final points position, ahead of Daniel Carlsson, who said that he was seriously lacking in confidence.

Top 10 leaderboard after SS10:

Pos  Driver        Make        Time
 1.  Hirvonen      Ford        1:57:22.9
 2.  Gronholm      Ford        +    19.7
 3.  Loeb          Citroen     +    27.0
 4.  Solberg       Subaru      +  2:05.4
 5.  Galli         Citroen     +  3:00.7
 6.  Solberg       Ford        +  3:06.5
 7.  Latvala       Ford        +  3:38.0
 8.  Stohl         Citroen     +  4:09.6
 9.  Carlsson      Citroen     +  4:39.8
10.  Hanninen      Mitsubishi  +  5:02.2