Gronholm extends lead over Loeb

The Ford driver leads Sebastien Loeb by 44 seconds heading into the final day, and the Frenchman has already admitted that he will not be pushing for victory.

"We've pushed really hard," said Loeb, who spent most of the day battling Petter Solberg. "We have to forget the victory now and push for second place."

Solberg had started the afternoon by pulling away from Loeb, but he struggled for the rest of the day after he broke a damper during SS14, and he is now 25 seconds behind the Citroen driver.

Mikko Hirvonen is in a relatively lonely fourth place, and while Henning Solberg was able to match his times throughout the afternoon, the he was unable to make any inroads into the Finn's advantage.

Chris Atkinson continued to suffer problems in sixth place, which prevented him from showing the Subaru's true pace.

The Australian was also suffering with a broken damper, and he admitted after one stage that he had been "spinning all the time."

Jan Kopecky moved into the points early in the loop of stages, as Manfred Stohl, Luis Perez Companc and Jari-Matti Latvala were among the six drivers that suffered punctures in SS14.

Stohl currently holds onto the final point-scoring position in eighth place, although British driver Guy Wilks is less than half a minute behind in ninth position.

Top 10 leaderboard after Leg 2:

Pos  Driver     Make      Time
 1.  Gronholm   Ford      3h 0:22.3
 2.  Loeb       Citroen   +    43.3
 3.  Solberg    Subaru    +  1:07.6
 4.  Hirvonen   Ford      +  2:32.1
 5.  Solberg    Ford      +  3:09.3
 6.  Atkinson   Subaru    +  5:25.0
 7.  Kopecky    Skoda     +  6:55.4
 8.  Stohl      Citroen   +  7:32.0
 9.  Wilks      Ford      +  7:59.6
10.  Wilson     Ford      +  8:44.8