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HELSINKI - Ford's Marcus Gronholm extended his overall lead in the Finnish Rally to 2.7 seconds on (Saturday) by edging out his nearest rival Mirkko Hirvonen at the ninth stage.
The Finnish world championship leader, looking almost unbeatable on the home soil forest tracks after winning the race the last three years, took three minutes, 56.7 seconds to complete the short Lautapera course for his sixth stage win of the day.
Hirvonen, Gronholm's compatriot and team mate, finished the stage 1.7 seconds behind, with triple world champion Sebastien Loeb in third a further 0.9 adrift.
Frenchman Loeb remained third overall, 15.5 behind the leader. The Citroen driver did better than most in keeping up with the two leaders and has opened a 22-second gap to Chris Atkinson, the Australian Subaru driver in fourth place overall.
Gronholm had regained the lead from Hirvonen by setting the fastest time on the fifth stage and then maintained it by tying on the sixth with his team mate.
The Finnish Ford driver was slightly behind Hirvonen at the final split time but caught up to finish the Mokkipera 2 stage in 6:42.7.
With that, Gronholm maintained his a scant lead of 0.4 seconds but went on to win stages seven and eight.
- REUTERS
