Day 1: Gronholm holds sway

Gronholm and second placed Tommi Makinen (Subaru) could not complete the penultimate stage of the day at full speed due to the crashed Ford Focus of Francios Duval. Only the first five cars on the road - Sebastien Loeb, Colin McRae, Carlos Sainz, Markko Martin and Richard Burns - were able to set competitive times before the stage was partially blocked by the Frenchman's accident. The stage was retrospectively cancelled.

Gronholm leads the rally by 27s from Makinen. Burns lies third after setting his first fastest stage time of the season on the final test and is now just a few seconds adrift of the Subaru star.

Harri Rovanpera is fourth, ahead of another Peugeot of Juuso Pykalisto, with the Skoda of Toni Gardemeister rounding out the top six.

Monte winners Citroen did not have a good day. All three of its drivers suffered with hitting the snow-covered stages first, and the trio suffered time-consuming incidents. Sainz is 12th, McRae 13th and Loeb a distant 18th.

McRae said: "We have had three spins. The first cost us about 40 seconds, the other two about 15 seconds each - the two this afternoon were fourth gear corners."