Gronholm rallies to sweep ahead
Marcus Gronholm bounced back from a mediocre start to take the lead of the Swedish Rally on stage three.
The two-time world champion trailed in fourth after two stages but on the third he won in style to leap straight to the top of the leaderboard.
Peugeot driver Gronholm leads by just 0.1seconds from the Citroen of reigning world champion Sebastien Loeb.
Petter Solberg, driving a Subaru, had led after the first pair of stages but a disappointing effort left him down in third, just 0.1secs adrift of Loeb.
Gianluigi Galli is enjoying a fine first day for resurgent Mitsubishi and he lies fourth after three stages, ahead of the Peugeot of Markko Martin and Citroen’s Francois Duval, in fifth and sixth respectively.
Reigning DTM champion Mattias Ekstrom is proving he can handle rally cars as well as touring cars and is on course for world championship points, with the Swede seventh in his Skoda.
The other Skoda of Janne Tuohino completes the points-scoring positions after three stages.
Manxman Mark Higgins made a strong start to his production car championship, claiming a hat-trick of runners-up spots to sit second in his Subaru, 18.2secs behind Toshihiro Arai’s similar car.
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 to lose over three minutes and slide down to 42nd in his Suzuki.
