Loeb closing in on Gronholm

Loeb's Citroen won the final stage of the morning, SS4, but also beat Gronholm's Ford in SS3 after the latter spun early into the stage.

The battle between Loeb and Gronholm is finally poised - with now only 11.6 seconds separating the pair. The gap would have been only 1.6 seconds if Loeb had not been given a 10-second penalty earlier in the day for checking in a minute too late to the second time control.

Gronholm, however, was only eight tenths of a second slower than Loeb through SS4, the 26.47km run through Lejen 2. The pair have just one full stage and one sprint stage to go today to earn any kind of comfortable and advantage overnight.

Ford's Mikko Hirvonen continues to impress in third. The Finn targeted a podium position before the rally started, and he is still in contention to finish on the top step. Hirvonen is only 23.2 seconds behind teammate Gronholm and a mere 11.6 seconds behind Loeb.

Gigi Galli, driving a privateer Mitsubishi, has worked his way up to fourth thanks to the fastest time through SS3, the second running of the 18.14 km Fredriksberg 2 stage. He was third quickest in SS4 and the Italian is 5.5 seconds behind Hirvonen and less than half a minute behind Gronholm.

Daniel Carlsson has overtaken former DTM champion Mattias Ekstrom in the battle for fifth, but his climb up the leaderboard was eased when Subaru's Chris Atkinson went off the road at the start of SS3, ending up in a ditch and hitting a tree.

The impact destroyed the power steering on Atkinson's Impreza WRC, but he was able to keep going. He lost nearly three minutes negotiating the stage and a further two minutes and 20 seconds in SS4, and he dropped down the leaderboard.

Atkinson's problems rubbed salt into Subaru's wounds, still reeling from Petter Solberg's broken driveshaft a few kilometres into the first stage of the day.

After losing three minutes in the opening stages because the Impreza had only front-wheel drive, Solberg has now started to set some respectable times, with his best being ninth quickest on SS4.

The Norwegian is still down the order, however, and faces a tough job to wrestle some points from the weekend.

There is a great battle for the final points-paying positions, however, with five drivers separated by just eight seconds. Janne Tuohino currently heads Kristian Sohlberg, OMV Peugeot teammates Manfred Stohl and Henning Solberg and Thomas Radstrom in the battle for seventh.

Top 20 leaderboard after SS4:

Pos  Driver         Make        Time
 1.  Gronholm       Ford        49:53.2
 2.  Loeb           Citroen     +  11.6
 3.  Hirvonen       Ford        +  23.2
 4.  Galli          Mitsubishi  +  28.7
 5.  Carlsson       Mitsubishi  +  36.7
 6.  Ekstrom        Skoda       +  43.0
 7.  Tuohino        Citroen     +  55.8
 8.  Sohlberg       Subaru      +  56.7
 9.  Stohl          Peugeot     +  57.3
10.  Solberg        Peugeot     +1:00.1
11.  Radstrom       Subaru      +1:03.6
12.  Katajamaki     Ford        +1:44.1
13.  Sordo          Citroen     +2:07.2
14.  Pons           Citroen     +2:14.1
15.  Joge           Peugeot     +2:46.7
16.  Kopecky        Skoda       +2:50.6
17.  Schie          Ford        +2:50.9
18.  Wilson         Ford        +2:54.4
19.  Solberg        Subaru      +3:03.7
20.  Perez Companc  Ford        +3:19.8