Gronholm just leads from Loeb

The pair are separated by 11 seconds after eight out of the event's 20 stages, and they have pushed Subaru's Petter Solberg down to third place.

While Loeb has recovered from starting the day in down in 20th place, Gronholm has been marginally quicker than the world champion over the course of the day

However, the Finn was keeping his emotions in check with two days of the rally still to go.

"It's been a good day," he said. "Some stages were not so good though, especially the long stage."

Gronholm was one of several drivers to suffer grip problems during the afternoon as the road conditions did not suit the studded tyres as well.

Despite moving into a competitive position, Loeb was particularly angry with one of the safety helicopters, which was flying too close to the ground in front of him in SS5.

"It was impossible to drive that stage," he said. "I had a helicopter in front of me and snow flying up in front of me so I could not see."

However, by the end of the day's running, the Frenchman was happy with his progress.

"I have tried hard all day but in these conditions it was really difficult being first on the road, so to be this close to Marcus is good," he said.

Solberg was unable to repeat the form that he showed in the morning, as the Subaru became more difficult to drive with less snow on the road.

"I lost all the grip," he said. "It's good to fight for the lead, but it is a shame that we lost so much.

"It has been really tough this afternoon, we are destroying our tyres too quickly and that is affecting the traction."

Henning Solberg moved up to fourth place behind his brother, at the expense of overnight leader Toni Gardemeister and a very disappointed Gigi Galli.

While Gardemeister was simply unable to match the pace of the front-runners and slipped to sixth behind Mikko Hirvonen, Galli was furious with himself after he lost several minutes by going over a snow bank.

"I'm really stupid," said the Italian. "I made a silly mistake and afterwards I lost my concentration and we were not consistent."

Galli's off dropped him down to 19th place, just behind the Citroen C4 of Dani Sordo, who had a similar incident this morning.

Hirvonen was delighted with his fifth place at the end of a difficult day, where he had endured several problems with his steering.

"If you think of the problems we've had it's been a good day," he said, "and we are still in the fight which is perfect."

Daniel Carlsson is up to seventh as he learns more about the Kronos Citroen Xsara, and he is just ahead of his teammate Manfred Stohl, who was pleased with his performance in the snow.

Chris Atkinson has moved up to ninth place after making a cautious start to the rally, while Jari-Matti Latvala completes the top 10 in his Ford Focus.

Pos Driver        Make       Time
 1. Gronholm      Ford       1h05:21.3
 2. Loeb          Citroën    + 11.1
 3. Solberg       Subaru     + 22.6
 4. Solberg       Ford       + 27.9
 5. Hirvonen      Ford       + 31.0
 6. Gardemeister  Mitsubishi + 34.9
 7. Carlsson      Citroën    + 44.1
 8. Stohl         Citroën    + 1:05.0
 9. Atkinson      Subaru     + 1:08.8
10. Latvala       Ford       + 1:40.6