Gronholm resists charging Loeb

Tyre choice proved critical this morning, as Loeb chose a harder compound than Gronholm. This paid off in SS6, where the Citroen driver was 3.1 seconds faster, but was less successful in SS7, which saw Gronholm reassert himself by five seconds.

But in the 31 kilometre Franklin stage Loeb's tyre choice turned out to be significantly better for the dry and dusty conditions. The world champion won the stage by a huge 11-second margin - reducing Gronholm's lead to just 3.6 seconds.

"It was not good for the second stage, where we lost a lot, but for the rest it was a good tyre choice," said Loeb. "I think Marcus went a bit too soft, so it's the opposite of yesterday morning.

"I tried to keep a good rhythm, tried not to slide too much, and it was okay."

Gronholm felt he had other problems in addition to his unsuitable tyre compound.

"First of all we chose the wrong tyres, then the car was like a snake all the time," he said. "I don't know what happened, I have no idea. It's not just the tyres."

After winning the Mystery Creek superspecial by just 0.4 seconds over Loeb, Gronholm has headed for the midday service with a four second advantage over his title rival.

Gronholm's Ford teammate Mikko Hirvonen has set consistent top three times all morning and remains in a very secure third place.

Nearly a minute behind him, the battle for fourth continues to rage. Stobart Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala passed works Subaru driver Chris Atkinson for fourth in Port Waikato, then edged further away by going third-quickest in the Possum stage.

That put Latvala 5.4 seconds ahead of Atkinson, but the Australian responded in the morning's final two stages and trimmed the gap back to 1.6 seconds. He said his earlier loss of time had simply been due to minor handling and tyre deficiencies.

"I was trying quite hard and had a little bit too much oversteer," Atkinson reported. "We went for a softer tyre, which was probably a bit too soft for that one."

Dani Sordo has drifted away from the Latvala/Atkinson contest in sixth, and is now 19.8 seconds behind the Subaru.

Seventh-placed Petter Solberg aimed to get amongst this group after making progress with the handling of his Subaru on Friday afternoon, but instead he took another step backwards and lost more time to the top six.

"Things are worse than yesterday," Solberg said. "Last night they changed something but it got worse. That's how it is. We have to deal with the situation."

His elder brother Henning Solberg fell from eighth to tenth after a minor error in Franklin resulted in costly radiator damage.

Solberg's problems elevated Urmo Aava and Matthew Wilson to eighth and ninth places, despite both drivers having spins of their own in the same stage.

SS8 also saw Subaru third driver Xevi Pons crash out for the second time in the weekend. He was running 36th after rejoining under Superally regulations following his Friday accident, but had to retire from leg two when he rolled five kilometres from the end of Franklin.

Pos  Driver     Make        Time
 1.  Gronholm   Ford        2h 11:56.3
 2.  Loeb       Citroen       +    4.0
 3.  Hirvonen   Ford          +   57.0
 4.  Latvala    Ford          + 1:49.3
 5.  Atkinson   Subaru        + 1:50.9
 6.  Sordo      Citroen       + 2:10.7
 7.  P Solberg  Subaru        + 2:38.1
 8.  Aava       Mitsubishi    + 5:54.2
 9.  Wilson     Ford          + 6:48.1
10.  H Solberg  Ford          + 7:46.9