It was quite a day in Sweden, as there were several shakeups in the top 8. Let’s start at the top. Rally leader Markko Martin smashed the rear suspension on his Ford Focus during SS11. Martin was able to coax the Focus back to service, but he lost over five minutes to the leaders, and he now sits in eighth place overall. Marcus Gronholm bounced back from car troubles, winning four stages and moving into second place overall. Perhaps he could have been closer to taking the lead, but a spin and crash on SS12 (which removed most of the front bodywork from his 307) cost him some time.

Petter Solberg had turbo problems earlier in the day, but he finished the day well, and is holding third place at the moment. It would take errors by Gronholm and rally leader Sebastien Loeb for Solberg to move up in the standings, though. Ford’s lone point scorer, Janne Tuohino, is holding fourth, though he had a terrible run through the spring on SS13, losing almost 9 seconds. Carlos Sainz is only a few seconds behind Tuohino, so expect there to be a good battle for fourth tomorrow.

Posted on 7 February 2004