Loeb closes on Gronholm down under

Newly-crowned world champion Sebastien Loeb continued to close in on Rally Australia leader Marcus Gronholm after four stages on leg one of the event.

Loeb set the pace on stages four and five across the Australian gravel to close his gap on the Peugeot driver to just 16.8 seconds.

Gronholm had continued to dominate after winning Thursday evening’s super special stage as he clocked the fastest times on the opening two stages of the day.

Subaru’s Petter Solberg had finished second to Gronholm on stages two and three but his rally is now over after the Norwegian stopped on stage four after damaging his Impreza’s front-right steering arm.

“It’s too bad, I didn’t want to end the season like this, but that’s just how it is sometimes,” said Solberg.

However, Solberg’s second place in the drivers’ championship can no longer be threatened after Ford driver Markko Martin failed to start on Friday morning.

Martin was sixth fastest over the super special stage and admitted he had concerns about the car after the engine dropped to three cylinders over the course.

The 29-year-old and co-driver Michael Park went to service in Perth this morning but the team’s engineers diagnosed piston damage and Martin was forced to retire.

Peugeot’s Harri Rovanpera held onto his third place overall after finishing in the top four in all four stages with remaining Ford driver Francois Duval in fourth but admitting he wasn’t happy with the set up of his Focus.