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Gronholm holds lead in Finland

Marcus Gronholm finished the first day of Rally Finland with a small advantage over Mikko Hirvonen

The Finnish pair dominated the afternoon's stages in the new 2007-spec Ford Focus, but Gronholm was able to extend the gap after the pair had been separated by less than a second in the morning.

The championship leader is also confident that he can extend his lead on Saturday, as he knows the majority of the roads that will be used.

"Being first on the road today was not the best," he said. "Tomorrow will be better for me, I know the roads more.

"For Ford, it's been a great day. The new car is good, Mikko is fast, and we are leading."

Hirvonen was disappointed to lose a little bit of ground to his teammate in the afternoon, but he was happy to have pulled away from Sebastien Loeb throughout the day.

The reigning world champion is more than 20 seconds adrift of the leader after a frustrating opening day, but he cannot relax as the drivers behind are still within striking distance.

"I tried hard all day but the Fords were too fast," said Loeb. "I don't know what the plan is tomorrow, but we have to keep pushing.

"The problem is that the Subarus are not too far behind. We have to keep pushing or they will come back into contention."

Chris Atkinson is still the lead Subaru in fourth place, but Petter Solberg closed up in the afternoon as he felt more comfortable in his car.

"The car is not too far off which is good," said Atkinson. "The pace is there, we just need to improve it a little bit. I think the conditions today helped the guys at the front."

Dani Sordo is in sixth place, although the Spaniard benefited from Henning Solberg suffering power steering problems in the second half of SS10.

Solberg remains seventh, while Manfred Stohl remained in eighth place, where he has been for the majority of the rally.

Standings after SS11:

Pos   Driver       Team        Time
 1.   Gronholm     Ford        1h05:18.5
 2.   Hirvonen     Ford            +04.4
 3.   Loeb         Citroen         +20.2
 4.   Atkinson     Subaru          +46.9
 5.   P Solberg    Subaru          +57.3
 6.   Sordo        Citroen       +1:22.6
 7.   H Solberg    Ford          +1:32.8
 8.   Stohl        Citroen       +1:45.8
 9.   Hanninen     Mitsubishi    +2:01.6
10.   Aava         Mitsubishi    +2:20.9

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