Ford boss targets fourth place

Gronholm was quickest on two of this morning's three stages and runs sixth going into the second loop of leg two.

"At the moment it's on schedule for fourth," said Wilson. "We feel we can get in front of (Jan) Kopecky. The big challenge now is whether we can challenge (Xavier) Pons for a position on the podium.

"If Marcus can continue at the pace he has gone on the opening stages, it's probably possible to achieve it, but usually what happens when the stages are used for a second time is that you can't make as big a margin as you can on the first run through.

"So we'll see what happens on the next three. But we feel quite confident that we can get to fourth, which would give us third place manufacturers' points. We'd be happy with that bearing in mind what's happened."

Both Fords suffered the same problem in SS5 yesterday. The bolts on the cars' turbo wastegates came undone after 100 kilometres of running. Gronholm and Mikko Hirvonen had to limp through the final stages of leg one and dropped from first and fourth to 10th and 14th respectively.