 Gronholm excels on the fast Finnish forest roads |
Double world champion Marcus Gronholm is leading the Rally of Finland after the first day's stages. The Finn has an 18-second lead over fellow Peugeot driver Sebastian Lindholm after winning six of the day's 10 special stages.
The other four stages were won by the third Peugeot driver, Harri Rovanpera, who crashed out of the lead of the rally on stage seven.
The Fords of Estonian Markko Martin and Finn Janne Tuohino are next up.
Carlos Sainz is fifth in the leading Citroen, with team-mate and world championship leader Sebastien Loeb down in seventh place more than a minute behind Gronholm. Even Jani Paasonen of the struggling Skoda team is ahead of Loeb, who is just 0.5secs ahead of Ford's Francois Duval in eighth.
But Loeb has a great chance to extend his championship lead, which is already a huge 17 points over Subaru's Petter Solberg.
Solberg, the reigning world champion, crashed out of the rally on the ninth stage.
The Norwegian crashed two kilometres into 24.9km-long fourth stage.
Earlier, four spectators were injured after Finn Ari Laivola's Mitsubishi left the road on the second stage.
Spokesman Esa Illoinen said one person was taken to hospital and three others received treatment but could not give further details.
Solberg, who is 17 points behind Citroen's Sebastien Loeb in the world championship standings, had been running third at the time of his crash.
MMIX
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