Gronholm wins in Sweden

It is his fourth victory in the WRC's only snow rally, which comes on his 38th birthday. After winning the Rally Monte Carlo last month, Gronholm has now opened up a four-point lead in the title race from Kronos Citroen driver Sebastien Loeb, who finished second.

Loeb had closed to within 15 seconds with three stages remaining after problems hit Gronholm's hydraulics. This led to a filter blowing up, which meant oil was dumped on the Ford driver's windscreen through SS16. He also had to briefly drive with manual gearshifting. It was the Finn's second scare of the day after his Focus failed to start in Parc Ferme early this morning.

However Gronholm won the final three stages comfortably from Loeb to win by 30.9 seconds.

Loeb regretted not pushing harder when Gronholm hit problems in SS16, settling for second as he looks to score points to try to win his third successive World Championship.

Local driver Daniel Carlsson won a titanic battle for third place with fellow Mitsubishi privateer Gigi Galli taking his best-ever finish in a World Rally Championship event. Galli and Carlsson were separated by less than two seconds until the final stage of the day, with the pair swapping the position an incredible four times in six stages.

Carlsson was only allowed to make the last minute switch to the Mitsubishi WRC machinery after the permission of his competitors just before the event. He was originally scheduled to drive a Super 1600 car.

Galli enjoyed the battle, but he drove without third gear through the final stage of the rally and had to settle for fourth, seven seconds behind the Swede.

Janne Tuohino was set for his best finish since the 2004 Rally of Finland, lying in a comfortable fifth in his privateer Citroen Xsara. However, he stopped within a kilometre of the finish in the final stage.

It was a bizarre case of deja vu for the Finn, who knocked a wheel off of his Skoda in the final stage of last year's event whilst set for a points-scoring finish.

Thomas Radstrom therefore inherited fifth place to score his best Swedish Rally result since 2001 in his first WRC drive in three years.

Kosti Katajamaki racked up the first points for the M-Sport VK Stobart Ford team with sixth place. Due to the privateers running ahead of him, Katajamaki scored the equivalent of third place for the Manufacturers championship with six points. The Finn finished 25.9 seconds ahead of Xavier Pons, Loeb's teammate.

Eighth was Henning Solberg who had clawed his way back into the points following his end-over-end roll yesterday but briefly dropped down the order after losing three minutes earlier in the day when he had to stop midway through SS15 to change a broken wheel.

Jimmy Joge's Peugeot 206 finished ninth ahead of Chris Atkinson, who scored Manufacturer points for Subaru following his crash which broke his power steering on the first day.

Atkinson's teammate Petter Solberg's disastrous rally continued this morning. Solberg finished 17th after dropping eight minutes in SS18 after the engine stalled at the start and a problem with the starter motor meant he had trouble getting going again.

He had struggled earlier in the day with his road position meaning that snow flicked up obstructing his view in SS14. He lost five seconds in SS16 after a spin and stalling his engine.

Former DTM champion Mattias Ekstrom crashed out in SS14 on a bad morning for Red Bull Skoda where both cars retired from the rally.

Ekstrom had begun the final leg in fifth place, just a tenth of a second ahead of Finnish privateer Tuohino. Ekstrom went off the road 3.8 km into the Lesjofors test. Teammate Andreas Aigner retired after succumbing to engine problems caused by an earlier off, coincidentally at the same corner as Ekstrom.

Top 20 finishers:

Pos  Driver      Make         Time
 1.  Gronholm    Ford         3h 09:01.9
 2.  Loeb        Citroen      +      0.9
 3.  Carlsson    Mitsubishi   +   2:56.8
 4.  Galli       Mitsubishi   +   3:03.8
 5.  Radstrom    Subaru       +   5:53.3
 6.  Katajamaki  Ford         +   7:34.8
 7.  Pons        Citroen      +   8:35.6
 8.  Solberg     Peugeot      +   9:01.5
 9.  Joge        Peugeot      +   9:17.2
10.  Tuohino     Citroen      +   9:43.0
11.  Atkinson    Subaru       +  11:33.5
12.  Hirvonen    Ford         +  11:57.4
13.  Kopecky     Skoda        +  12:19.3
14.  Wilson      Ford         +  14:40.4
15.  Hanninen    Mitsubishi   +  15:14.9
16.  Sordo       Citroen      +  15:17.7
17.  Ketomaki    Subaru       +  17:12.6
18.  Stohl       Peugeot      +  20:02.3
19.  Andersson   Suzuki       +  20:16.8
20.  Sandell     Renault      +  21:09.9