KEY POINTS:
Marcus Gronholm plans to capitalise as Sebastien Loeb again ventures into the unknown today when the Rally of New Zealand continues to wind its way through the Waikato.
The meticulous Finn unveiled his ruthless streak on Friday when building a 14.8 second lead on the first loop of back-to-back stages in Pirongia and Waitomo.
Aware his French rival had not yet raced over the routes because he missed last November's leg of the World Rally Championship (WRC) through injury, Gronholm made the most of his "home ground advantage" before Loeb limited the early damage by regrouping on the repeat journey in the afternoon.
Loeb narrowly won both re-run stages but only managed to shave 1.8 seconds off the four-time New Zealand champion's overall lead.
Gronholm, who had his own troubles yesterday battling flu, hoped to play out the same scenario when six stages see the competitors head as far north as Port Waikato before backtracking south to Raglan after making another sprint around the super special stage at the Mystery Creek service park.
"I will push to the maximum to try and take more time out of Loeb," the current WRC leader said.
"The gap between us isn't big enough yet. Fortunately the stages are again new for him, and it's an advantage that only the short spectator stage (at Mystery Creek) is being repeated because he is always so strong on the second pass."
Gronholm was also aided by an astute tyre choice when given first use of damp muddy gravel roads yesterday - another area where Loeb was disadvantaged.
Citroen Total World Rally Team admitted they erred by initially running soft tyres but Loeb compensated for the error after the lunchtime service.
"The set-up changes we made turned to be very beneficial," said Loeb, who trails Gronholm by eight points with 11 of the 16 WRC rounds remaining.
Gronholm's BP-Ford World Rally Team second driver Mikko Hirvonen completed the top three - 49.2 seconds behind his compatriot.
There is a log jam behind Hirvonen with just 12.1 seconds covering the trio of Chris Atkinson (Subaru WRT), Jari-Matti Latvala (Stobart Ford) and Loeb's teammate Dani Sordo.
Xevi Pons and Manfred Stohl were high profile casualties after crashing out of stage three and four respectively though they may restart.
New Zealand's Hayden Paddon also came to grief in stage two when his gearbox jammed, ensuring a dismal start to his scholarship drive in the Production Car WRC (PWRC) class.
Paddon's lead in the national championship was whittled away though he has a chance to bank some valuable points today.
A puncture 7km from the end of the penultimate stage marred Richard Mason's encouraging first-up performance after he dropped three minutes to start day two 22nd overall - 9min 37.1sec behind Gronholm.
Although keen to do well in the PWRC division - he was runner-up to Latvala last year - Mason's focus today was to bank enough points to improve his chances of retaining the national title, which he started here in third place, 18 points behind Paddon.
After Mason's and Paddon's misfortune, Rotorua's Dean Sumner's flawless performance in a Mitsubishi Evo 9 saw him finish as the best-placed local driver in 19th - 9min 04secs down on the Finn.
Sumner, overlooked for the PWRC wildcard entries awarded to Paddon and Emma Gilmour, was satisfied with his start.
"I'm pretty confident we can come away with a top-three finish (among the New Zealanders)," he said.
- NZPA
