Day 1am: It's Gronholm, just

Gronholm has failed to take a stage win so far today (Friday), but his consistency has kept him near the top in each of the day's four stages and he's benefited from the demise of his rivals Markko Martin and Petter Solberg, who had been lying in first and second spots before they both hit trouble.

Martin had a huge roll in his Ford WRC towards the end of SS5 (Click HERE for separate story) and was taken to hospital for precautionary checks along with co-driver Michael Park. He is out of the rally making it the third consecutive event that he has failed to score any championship points.

Solberg's problems were less dramatic but severely damaged him in terms of time. After taking three of the four opening tests the Norwegian hit a water splash in SS5 and lost 27.8s to stage winner Sebastien Loeb and dropped to fourth place overall.

Loeb took his second consecutive stage win in SS6, 1.9s quicker than team-mate Sainz as they make it known they will be a force to be reckoned with this rally. Like Gronholm, Sainz's consistency ensures the Spaniard is keeping his nose right in at the top behind overall leader Gronholm while Loeb is just 1.1s adrift of his team-mate overall in third spot.

Solberg bounced back from his water dramas to set the third quickest time in the stage to make him fourth overall while Peugeot's Harri Rovanpera was fifth quickest and also fifth overall behind the Norwegian.

Mikko Hirvonen was sixth best on the stage in the Subaru ahead of Ford's Francois Duval, Mitsubishi drivers Gilles Panizzi and Kristian Sohlberg and Ford privateer Antony Warmbold.