Gronholm moves clear in Greece

First Petter Solberg was forced to retire when he crashed while avoiding a non-competing car on the road section prior to SS13.

Then Sebastien Loeb suffered a tyre failure early in the stage and lost over a minute as he limped to the end on three wheels. Although Loeb retained second, he may yet have to retire from the leg if he cannot make it back to service.

In recent rallies it has been Gronholm who has dropped out while in a strong position, but this time the roles are reversed, and he now leads Loeb by 1:47.2.

"I'm lucky now, but still we have to complete tomorrow and it's not easy," said Gronholm.

Mikko Hirvonen has inherited third, 2:59.2 behind his Ford teammate after a deliberately conservative run through this afternoon's very rocky stages.

Dani Sordo has moved up to fourth place as a result of both the problems ahead and his own increased speed. He is just over two seconds ahead of Manfred Stohl, who ended SS13 with a fire underneath his OMV Peugeot and also faces a nervous run back to service.

The battle around the OMV cars has been extraordinarily close all weekend and even now just 5.9 seconds covers Sordo, Stohl and Henning Solberg in fourth to sixth positions, with Toni Gardemeister only 11.8 seconds further back in seventh.

The consistent Xavier Pons is currently in line for the final point, with Jussi Valimaki and Matthew Wilson elevated to ninth and 10th after Francois Duval, Kosti Katajamaki and Chris Atkinson all stopped in this afternoon's stages.

Leaderboard after leg two:

Pos  Driver        Make              Time
 1.  Gronholm      Ford        2h 51:18.3
 2.  Loeb          Citroen       + 1:47.2
 3.  Hirvonen      Ford          + 2:59.2
 4.  Sordo         Citroen       + 3:57.5
 5.  Stohl         Peugeot       + 4:00.4
 6.  H Solberg     Peugeot       + 4:03.4
 7.  Gardemeister  Citroen       + 4:15.2
 8.  Pons          Citroen       + 5:50.3
 9.  P Solberg     Subaru        + 6:16.9
10.  Valimaki      Mitsubishi    + 7:19.8
11.  Wilson        Ford         + 10:16.5
12.  Rovanpera     Skoda        + 10:21.5
13.  Katajamaki    Ford         + 11:51.4
14.  Atkinson      Subaru       + 12:10.9
15.  Aigner        Skoda        + 14:16.2
16.  Duval         Skoda        + 15:03.4
17.  Vovos         Subaru       + 15:14.8
18.  Kopecky       Skoda        + 16:57.2
19.  Al-Attiyah    Subaru       + 20:32.6
20.  Pozzo         Mitsubishi   + 21:09.9