SS2, Maungatawhirl: Petter quick

Didier Auriol in the second Peugeot was third and Kenneth Eriksson took the limelight for Hyundai on SS2 finishing fourth fastest, less than two seconds off Solberg's benchmark time.

His Scottish team mate Alister McRae was exactly two seconds behind Solberg posting the fifth fastest time followed by the Ford of Carlos Sainz.

With the stage being so short, Solberg was the only real mover on the leaderboard as the rally heads to the third stage of the day, the 16.75km Te Papatapu 1 test. Competitors have one more stage after that before heading back to service at Raglan.

Petter Solberg, Subaru, 3m39.8s
Marcus Gronholm, Peugeot, +00.2s
Didier Auriol, Peugeot, +01.6s
Kenneth Eriksson, Hyundai, +01.8s
Alister McRae, Hyundai, +02.0s
Carlos Sainz, Ford, +02.6s


1 Marcus Gronholm, Peugeot, 21m44.6s
Petter Solberg, Subaru, +0.4.2s
Alister McRae, Hyundai, +04.6s
Colin McRae, Ford, +07.7s
Didier Auriol, Peugeot, +08.1s
Kenneth Eriksson, Hyundai, +12.5s
Francois Delecour, Ford, +17.6s
Carlos Sainz, Ford, +17.9s
Harri Rovanpera, Peugeot, +21.2s
Possum Bourne, Subaru, +24.7s