Gronholm extends lead over Loeb

The Finn, who began the day with a slender 10.2 seconds lead, has stretched his lead over Kronos Citroen driver Sebastien Loeb to 28.1 seconds.

Gronholm complained of understeer yesterday so his Ford team changed some differential settings overnight, and it appears that they have cured the problem, and he has set some blistering stage times in his Ford Focus.

Loeb has not been comfortable with his tyre choice so far today, and it looks like it will be a tough job now to catch Gronholm in this event.

Privateer Mitsubishi driver Daniel Carlsson is currently winning the battle with fellow Lancer driver Gigi Galli for third. The Italian held the position after SS9 and SS10, but Carlsson grabbed back the place in SS11. The local driver now holds a 2.4-second advantage over the Galli.

OMV Peugeot drivers Manfred Stohl and Henning Solberg both hit trouble on SS11, the 20.78km stage of Sundsjon 2.

Stohl retired from the leg after going off into a ditch 19km in SS11 and was unable to get back onto the road. He was running well, having moved up to fifth earlier in the day.

Teammate Henning Solberg was fortunate to finish the same stage after rolling in the last quarter of the stage. The car was suffered major panel damage to the body work and the windscreen was smashed in, however Solberg managed to complete the stage only losing two minutes to stage winner Gronholm.

However, when the car was upside down the roof scooped a considerable amount of snow into the car, and without a windscreen, Solberg and co-driver Cato Menkerud are now facing a cold drive back to service park in temperatures of minus 8 degrees centigrade.

Stohl and Solberg's problems have meant that Janne Tuohino has moved up to fifth in his privateer Citroen Xsara, just ahead of Mattias Ekstom's Skoda and Kristian Sohlberg's Subaru.

Other manufacturer drivers have also had problems.

Matthew Wilson crashed early in SS10 getting stuck in one of the rally's infamous snow banks. With help from spectators the 2004 Ford Focus was pushed back onto the stage, but Wilson lost nearly three minutes as a result.

Petter Solberg had yet more technical problems with his Subaru Impreza following on from his drama yesterday. He completed SS10 and SS11 stuck in fourth gear. It is his second gearbox in the rally, after his transmission was replaced yesterday. He is currently seven minutes behind Gronholm.

Top 20 leaderboard after SS11

Pos  Driver      Make        Time
 1.  Gronholm    Ford        1h 59:04.4
 2.  Loeb        Citroen     +     28.1
 3.  Carlsson    Mitsubishi  +   2:12.4
 4.  Galli       Mitsubishi  +   2:14.8
 5.  Tuohino     Citroen     +   2:53.1
 6.  Ekstrom     Skoda       +   2:57.5
 7.  Sohlberg    Subaru      +   3:03.4
 8.  Radstrom    Subaru      +   3:39.8
 9.  Solberg     Peugeot     +   4:33.8
10.  Katajamaki  Ford        +   5:15.6
11.  Pons        Citroen     +   5:32.3
12.  Schie       Ford        +   5:43.5
13.  Joge        Peugeot     +   6:25.7
14.  Solberg     Subaru      +   7:12.3
15.  Stohl       Peugeot     +   7:21.1
16.  Kopecky     Skoda       +   8:17.8
17.  Hanninen    Mitsubishi  +   9:28.7
18.  Atkinson    Subaru      +   9:55.1
19.  Wilson      Ford        +  10:02.3
20.  Ketomaki    Subaru      +  10:16.5