Solberg ends day on a high

Two of the stages this afternoon were quite short, but on the longer stage Solberg was as much as 12 seconds faster than the Finn until the Subaru's usual traction problems kicked in.

"It's been a really good day today," said Solberg. "My car was fast for a long time before the traction problem came in."

"The car isn't brilliant but I'm really confident, we are improving all the time and that's a good feeling."

While conditions had improved from the morning, there was still mud on the stage, which Gronholm had to clear first.

"It's been a difficult day, it's not so good to be first on the road," said the Ford driver, who dominated the opening stage but hasn't had much of an advantage for the rest of the day.

Ford are still looking strong though, with Mikko Hirvonen running in third place, but Henning Solberg is currently less than a second away from a podium place, and Hirvonen is enjoying being in a battle for once.

Colin McRae rued a bad tyre choice in the afternoon, which meant he was unable to capitalise on improving conditions on the long stage, despite running later than the other leaders.

"It's been a tough day, we chose a tyre with a very limited cut and there was nothing I could do," McRae said.

"Our information told us that the stage was drying, but it was wrong. This would have been a good opportunity to make up some time, but if you push too hard on the wrong tyres you will go off."

McRae moved narrowly ahead of Chris Atkinson by setting the second fastest time in the final stage of the day, but that was only enough to put him sixth overall.

Both are behind Stobart Ford driver Kosta Katajamaki though, while Xevi Pons rounds out the top eight.

Pos  Driver      Make      Time     
 1.  Gronholm    Ford      57:25.1
 2.  P.Solberg   Subaru    + 26.1
 3.  Hirvonen    Ford      + 48.8
 4.  H.Solberg   Peugeot   + 49.5
 5.  Katajamaki  Ford      + 1:12.2
 6.  McRae       Citroen   + 1:25.9
 7.  Atkinson    Subaru    + 1:26.5  
 8.  Pons        Citroen   + 1:34.2
 9.  Stohl       Peugeot   + 1:56.2
10.  Duval       Skoda     + 1:59.8