Gronholm shocked by rock damage

Marcus Gronholm was left ruing his abysmal luck after retiring from the lead of the Rally Italia having hit a seemingly innocuous rock in SS9

The impact smashed the Ford's sump and handed a huge lead to Gronholm's title rival Sebastien Loeb.

"It was a slight left into a hairpin right. Nothing special, I even braked a bit early," Gronholm told autosport.com.

"It (the rock) just came out of nowhere, a big bang. But not a bigger bang than we'd had before.

"A warning light came on immediately but we carried on because we thought we'd just dislodged a sensor. We did 800 metres and it just stopped."

Gronholm had dominated the opening day and looked set to strike back against Loeb for the first time since winning in Sweden three months ago.

"Obviously it's massively disappointing," said Gronholm. "We've given Loeb another win. It's so frustrating.

"I suppose the positive is that we had the speed."

Loeb revealed that he had a close call with the same rock that halted Gronholm.

"If I'd been 15 centimetres either side, I'd be out too," Loeb told autosport.com.

"It's real shame for Marcus because it was an interesting fight. It would've been difficult to catch him."