Hirvonen: no way to help Gronholm

Sebastien Loeb has a six-point lead over Gronholm heading into the event, and the Citroen driver has already made it clear that he will not be battling for victory.

Ford will be hoping that some of their drivers will be able to put pressure on Loeb, but Hirvonen believes that the Frenchman will not get sucked into a battle with the two works cars.

"In terms of Marcus and the championship there is not a lot I can do," Hirvonen told autosport.com. "I don't expect Sebastien to fight with us at all.

"He doesn't need to fight us. If we are first and second, he can be third, fourth, or fifth and still be champion.

"We will have plenty of chances to fight next year, but here we just have to hope that maybe he takes it too easy and makes a mistake."

Loeb has said that he is expecting it to be difficult to control his pace from the start of the rally, and Gronholm shares Hirvonen's hope that the Frenchman will struggle to run at a slower speed.

"We have to see how Sebastien is in this position," said Gronholm. "He is not comfortable with it.

"But we have never seen Sebastien sixth in a rally, so I don't think it will happen this time."

Hirvonen believes that Ford will be very strong this weekend, as he compared the conditions to those in Japan, where he won the event while Loeb and Gronholm crashed out.

"We just have to do our own thing," he added. "We are very confident. The road conditions seem similar to Japan, and our car was very good there."