Gronholm stays ahead in Spain

The Ford driver extended his advantage over Sebastien Loeb to 11.1 seconds in SS3, then was pegged back a little in El Montmell 2.

Loeb was fastest through the latter stage, but remained unhappy with his Kronos Citroen.

"Now I have some understeer in the fast places and I'm not very confident," he said. "I'm not driving like I usually do so I think we have to change the settings."

Gronholm felt that his tyre choice may have been too soft, and admitted to make a few mistakes in SS4.

Daniel Sordo has moved ahead of Mikko Hirvonen in the battle for third, with Xavier Pons still holding fifth.

Petter Solberg is now a minute behind the leaders in sixth place, and seemingly bemused by his Subaru's lack of pace.

"No major problems at all," he said. "I'm doing everything I can.

"My aim is to get on the podium, so we just have to work hard."

Leading results after SS4:

Pos  Driver    Make     Time
 1.  Gronholm  Ford     52:30.3
 2.  Loeb      Citroen  + 9.3
 3.  Sordo     Citroen  + 25.2
 4.  Hirvonen  Ford     + 27.5
 5.  Pons      Citroen  + 42.7
 6.  Solberg   Subaru   + 1:00.5
 7.  Kopecky   Skoda    + 1:07.7
 8.  Bengue    Peugeot  + 1:14.4
 9.  Sarrazin  Subaru   + 1:21.4
10.  Duval     Skoda    + 1:25.3
11.  Atkinson  Subaru   + 1:39.4
12.  Stohl     Peugeot  + 2:04.8
13.  Wilson    Ford     + 3:12.8
14.  Aigner    Skoda    + 3:14.1
15.  Vojtech   Peugeot  + 4:19.5
16.  Panizzi   Skoda    + 4:50.5
17.  Latvala   Ford     + 6:06.7
18.  Prokop    Citroen  + 6:27.0
19.  Bernd     Renault  + 6:58.4
20.  Pressac   Citroen  + 7:01.4