Gronholm fights back

Gronholm, who went into the day 10.2 seconds ahead of the Frenchman, won both SS7 and SS8 to stem the tide of four successive stage results where Loeb had beaten the Ford Focus driver.

Gronholm complained of understeer yesterday so his Ford team changed some differential settings overnight, and it appears that they have cured the problem.

Kronos Citroen driver Loeb has suffered slightly with his choice of studded tyres this morning, but is still within 18 seconds of Gronholm, with five stages left to run today.

The pair have a comfortable gap back to third, where privateer Mitsubishi drivers Gigi Galli and Daniel Carlsson are scrapping over the final podium position. Local driver Carlsson snatched the position after SS7 despite hitting a snow bank, however Galli took it back on SS8. The fight is by no means over yet, with only four-tenths of a second separating the pair.

OMV Peugeot driver Manfred Stohl has made up the deficit to Mattias Ekstrom and snatched fifth place in SS7, despite being another driver to have a brief encounter with a snow bank. Ekstrom is still within touching distance of the Austrian, with the former DTM champion being only 3.2 seconds behind.

Skoda driver Ekstrom cannot just concentrate on catching Stohl and will have a job on his hands to defend his position, because Stohl's teammate Henning Solberg has gained more time this morning. Solberg is only 4.6 seconds behind Ekstrom in seventh. Kristian Sohlberg is in the picture too, being only 10.3 seconds further adrift in his privateer Subaru.

Mikko Hirvonen has restarted the rally after retiring from leg one with high engine temperatures yesterday, and was second fastest on SS7, just eight-tenths of a second slower than his Ford teammate Gronholm.

Petter Solberg has finally started posting stage times expected of him after his driveshaft and gearbox problems yesterday, with the third fastest time on both SS7 and SS8. However, the Norwegian is still six minutes behind Gronholm and is out of contention.

Top 20 after SS8:

Pos  Driver     Make       Time
 1.  Gronholm   Ford       1:29:42.0
 2.  Loeb       Citroen    +    17.9
 3.  Galli      Mitsubishi +  1:26.3
 4.  Carlsson   Mitsubishi +  1:26.7
 5.  Stohl      Peugeot    +  1:55.7
 6.  Ekstrom    Skoda      +  1:58.9
 7.  Solberg    Peugeot    +  2:03.5
 8.  Sohlberg   Subaru     +  2:13.8
 9.  Tuohino    Citroen    +  2:18.5
10.  Radstrom   Subaru     +  2:43.8
11.  Katajamaki Ford       +  3:15.9
12.  Pons       Citroen    +  4:14.2
13.  Schie      Ford       +  4:39.3
14.  Joge       Peugeot    +  4:54.3
15.  Wilson     Ford       +  5:38.9
16.  Kopecky    Skoda      +  5:53.2
17.  Solberg    Subaru     +  6:10.6
18.  Aigner     Skoda      +  7:26.3
19.  Atkinson   Subaru     +  8:16.2
20.  Andersson  Suzuki     +  9:17.2