Rally NZ: Gronholm cruises to victory

The world champion started the day with a lead of over a minute and drove cautiously throughout the final day to secure the win, although he still claimed one fastest stage time and went second fastest on the remaining five stages.

Gronholm's Peugeot team-mate Richard Burns set the pace for most of the day. After losing time to Petter Solberg on the first stage of the day, he rebounded to set the fastest time on all five of the final stages to secure second place. However, with Gronholm never more than two seconds slower than him on any stage, he still trailed the Finn by over a minute at the finish.

The final day of the rally proved fairly quiet, with most of the top eight drivers settling for position, and driving purely to make the finish. Solberg finished third, with Citroen's Sebastien Loeb securing fourth. Skoda driver Toni Gardemeister finished an excellent fifth for Skoda, ahead of Alister McRae, who put in an impressive showing on his first WRC event since last year.

Tommi Makinen finished seventh, passing Didier Auriol on the very last stage, when the Frenchman's Skoda lost its turbo.