Hirvonen maintains lead in Wales

The Ford driver lost eight seconds to his teammate Gronholm through the first stage of the day, but by the end of the loop he was back up to speed, and he leads the event by 32 seconds.

"I haven't been to these stages for many years, so I needed to pick it up a bit," said Hirvonen. "It's been difficult, but the pace is ok now."

Gronholm and Sebastien Loeb continued to run at a steady pace behind Hirvonen, while Petter Solberg's hopes of fighting for a podium took a hit when he spun at the start of the day's first stage.

"We spun at the first right-hand bend," said Solberg. "I don't know why. We are trying to fight, but it's difficult to have confidence in the car.

"I hope we can get a podium still, I'm doing everything I can but it won't be easy. Let's hope for the best."

Dani Sordo is around half a minute adrift of Solberg in fifth place, while Chris Atkinson moved narrowly ahead of Matt Wilson in their tight battle for sixth place.

The pair's stage times were close throughout the morning, which pleased Wilson more than the Subaru driver.

"I made a few mistakes, so it's encouraging to know that he only took a couple of seconds out of me," said Wilson.

"Chris is driving well, but we are happy with the pace we are doing. I think we are just being too ambitious in the slow stuff at the moment."

Manfred Stohl remains in a comfortable eighth place, ahead of the third Subaru of Xevi Pons.

The star of the morning was Jari-Matti Latvala though, as the Stobart Ford driver won all three stages as he bounced back from a disastrous run through SS6 on Friday evening which dropped him out of the top 10.

Pos  Driver       Car         Time 
 1.  Hirvonen     Ford        1h46:12.4
 2.  Gronholm     Ford        +  32.6   
 3.  Loeb         Citroen     +  01:06.5
 4.  Solberg      Subaru      +  02:13.3
 5.  Sordo        Citroen     +  02:45.2
 6.  Atkinson     Subaru      +  05:28.3
 7.  Wilson       Ford        +  05:31.4
 8.  Stohl        Citroen     +  06:23.0
 9.  Pons         Subaru      +  07:18.8
10.  Kopecky      Skoda       +  08:37.1