Gronholm holds off Solberg to grab lead

TWO-TIME world champion Marcus Gronholm held off Petter Solberg to claim the lead at the end of the first day of the Swedish Rally.

Gronholm lost the lead to Solberg on the penultimate stage of the day but he clawed back time to hold a slender 0.2second lead on the final stage.

Subaru driver Solberg was left cursing a set-up change after winning the first two stages, which left his car struggling and cost him valuable time.

He said: “The first stages went very well but I made some changes to the suspension before the third and lost a lot of time. The car was all over the place and was bottoming out a bit too much at the front - I won’t be doing that again.”

He recovered from that problem to post consistently fast times and creep ahead of Gronholm on stage six before dropping back again on stage seven.

World champion Sebastien Loeb is running third, 10secs behind Gronholm’s Peugeot, after enduring a troubled run on stage four. He lost nearly 20secs and slipped into third as Solberg leapfrogged him.

The Citroen driver fought back to win stage five and stay in contention but he faces a challenge for his podium spot from surprise contender Gianluigi Galli.

The Mitsubishi driver has continued the team’s good start to the season and won stage six to close the gap on Loeb, although he admitted to being surprised by his pace.

“Everything is fantastic for us,” he said. “Our position is more than I expected, but the car is very good. We made the right tyre choice and I have a very good feeling of confidence. We only had one small problem in the first stage when I spun the car and the back end hit a snowbank. Otherwise, everything has been good.”

The Citroen of Francois Duval and Peugeot’s Markko Martin head into leg two in fifth and sixth place respectively.

Manxman Mark Higgins made a strong start to his production car championship, setting consistently quick times to sit second in his Subaru, 25.5secs behind Toshihiro Arai’s similar car after six stages.

Darlington’s Guy Wilks, who is using the event to gain experience as it does not count towards his junior championship title bid, suffered a disastrous stage three, losing over 3 minutes.. After six stages he is 36th.