Gronholm extends lead
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ByEurosport
Published 18/11/2006 at 06:07 GMT
Marcus Gronholm remains on course for victory on Rally New Zealand after dominating proceedings on the event's rain-hit second day. Gronholm now leads his Ford team-mate Mikko Hirvonen by 50.3 seconds to ensure the blue oval are still heading towards the
RALLY Ford BP Gronholm
Image credit: Imago
Gronholm and most of the rest of the top ten all opted for hard tyres - too hard as it turned out. But with the softer options completely unsuitable for the conditions, nobody made huge gains.
The 38-year-old Finn kept it neat and tidy all day long, winning three of the six stages to add over 19 seconds to his advantage on what he called one of the muddiest days of his WRC career.
"It was a really wet morning and the stages weren't enjoyable to drive in those conditions, but there was no panic," said Gronholm.
"The weather changed hugely after we made our tyre choice so a softer compound would have been better. We weren't under severe pressure and not having to drive flat out, so it wasn't a big problem but I have never seen mud like that here.
"This afternoon I had a few troubles with my windscreen wipers, which I had to keep switching on and off to get them to work, but I'm happy with the way the day has gone."
Although Hirvonen poses no threat to his team-mate, he is comfortable in second - keeping a watching brief in case anything should happen to his countryman.
Dani Sordo began the day in third, but the Kronos Citroen driver endured a poor ninth stage, losing the position to Austrian Manfred Stohl's Bozian Peugeot. The second Citroen of Xavier Pons finished the day in fifth.
Sixth is Petter Solberg's Subaru, who celebrated his 32nd birthday with an uneventful day, while Luis Perez Companc continued to enjoy his best rally of the season in seventh in his M-Sport Ford.
After starting the day ninth, Australian Chris Atkinson was the man who surprisingly broke Gronholm's dominance at the front by winning stage seven.
He raised even more eyebrows by repeating the feat on stage eight, but crashed on the next test, damaging his right front-wheel.
As he tried to replace the item, his wheeljack sunk in soft mud, preventing him from doing so and putting him out on the spot.
There was also misfortune for Henning Solberg, who spectacularly rolled his Bozian Peugeot from seventh on the penultimate stage of the day - losing 15 minutes and dropping to 14th.
He put in a starring performance on the final stage of the day though, setting the third best time despite a car suffering serious accident damage.
The problems for the WRC runners allowed some of the leading Group N drivers into the lower reaches of the top ten.
Finn Jari Matti Latvala lies eighth in his Mitsubishi, with Italian Mirco Baldacci and local driver Richard Mason next up in their Subarus.
Lower down, Valentino Rossi, who is driving a WRC Subaru, continued to find his feet on only his second WRC appearance - and his first for four years - by moving up from 24th to 13th.
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