Gronholm extends lead further

A vibration in the day's opening stage caused him some concern, but this was rapidly rectified by changing tyres, and he remains on course for his first win since February.

With Gronholm proceeding relatively cautiously through the rock-strewn stages, it is the delayed Petter Solberg who has been taking the stage wins. He had to retire from leg two after a freak accident on the penultimate road section, but restarted ninth under SupeRally regulations today. Solberg has already progressed to seventh and is delighted with the Subaru's performance.

"The car is definitely better," Solberg said. "We just have to test. We made a mistake with the set-up yesterday morning. We've moved another way this morning and it's not bad."

Sebastien Loeb continues to hold second place and is not doing anything to endanger his points haul.

"I just try to avoid all the stones because you can have a puncture easily, as I did yesterday," said Loeb. "There is nothing to do, just control Hirvonen.

"In this position I don't like to drive fast, I just try to finish the rally. I try to do a normal rhythm, but slowly."

While Mikko Hirvonen's third position is also under no threat, there have been several changes in the tense battle behind him.

Fourth placed Dani Sordo led Manfred Stohl by just 2.9 seconds going into leg three, but both hit trouble early on. Stohl was late starting SS14 and then stopped for good early in the stage.

Sordo then slowed with an apparent engine problem and lost over a minute. A spark plug change on the subsequent road section revived the Citroen Xsara and Sordo completed the loop without further incident.

Toni Gardemeister has therefore jumped from seventh to fourth place. While he benefited from Sordo and Stohl's dramas, the Finn is also getting more speed out of his Astra Citroen Xsara as he acclimatises to it. He moved one second ahead of Henning Solberg in Avlonas 1 and then increased that advantage significantly after the Norweigan stalled in SS15.

Xavier Pons has fallen behind the recovering Solberg, but with the other SupeRallying cars all significantly further behind, the Kronos number two seems assured of the final point.

Leaderboard after SS15:

Pos  Driver        Make              Time
 1.  Gronholm      Ford        3h 22:40.1
 2.  Loeb          Citroen       + 2:05.8
 3.  Hirvonen      Ford          + 3:26.1
 4.  Gardemeister  Citroen       + 4:21.0
 5.  H Solberg     Peugeot       + 4:36.5
 6.  Sordo         Citroen       + 5:09.1
 7.  P Solberg     Subaru        + 6:04.3
 8.  Pons          Citroen       + 6:54.4
 9.  Valimaki      Mitsubishi    + 8:39.6
10.  Wilson        Ford         + 11:59.2
11.  Rovanpera     Skoda        + 12:36.6
12.  Atkinson      Subaru       + 13:18.6
13.  Stohl         Peugeot      + 15:17.8
14.  Duval         Skoda        + 15:20.4
15.  Vovos         Subaru       + 16:14.9
16.  Kopecky       Skoda        + 18:19.2
17.  Aigner        Skoda        + 19:04.5
18.  Teiskonen     Subaru       + 26:07.6
19.  Baldacci      Mitsubishi   + 27:25.6
20.  Al-Attiyah    Subaru       + 28:45.1