Day 2pm Marcus on top

Gronholm is taking no chances and knows how easy it is to lose a precious lead on one of the most grueling events on the calendar. Not only is it torturously hot inside the cars, the rough nature od the terrain counts against reliability as Petter Solberg, Harri Rovanpera and Francois Duval have already discovered.

"Everything is okay so far," said Gronholm. "It's getting a little bit hot out there, but our rally is going according to plan. Our lead is about 20 seconds now, but that's nothing on this rally. I'm just concentrating on keeping everything tidy and looking after the car."

Loeb won the final stage of the day, SS12, to stretch his advantage over third-placed Markko Martin to 10.7s. The Frenchman also won SS9 before the lunchtime interval and even then Martin was pessimistic of his chances of catching the Citroen.

"I will try to drive as quickly as possible this afternoon, but here I can't regain big chunks of time," said Martin. "I can only take back a few seconds here or there. I'm pushing hard and hopefully luck will be with us, but luck is the thing we can't control."

Carlos Sainz is fourth in the second Citroen but nearly 50s adrift of Martin and would seem to be cruising for points now. The Spaniard is 46s clear of Rovanpera, whose rally came apart on the first stage of the day.

The unfortunate Finn was just 10s behind Peugeot team-mate Gronholm overnight but hit transmission problems almost immediately this morning. His 307 was repaired during the lunch-break, but he over-ran his service time and incurred a 30s penalty.

Mikko Hirvonen is sixth in the leading Subaru, nearly five minutes off the leader. His team-mate is proving however that the Impreza had the potential to win. After his overheating problems yesterday, Petter Solberg has stormed through the second leg taking three stage wins and moved back up to eighth place.

Solberg's next target will be Janne Tuohino's seventh-placed privateer Ford Focus, 53s up the road. But on the Norweigen's current form you'd be crazy to bet against him scoring two points at the end of this event.