Gronholm for his part had a bad start on Friday and he lost 10 seconds straight away when he was only seventh fastest in SS1 due to a lack of confidence. Although he made some changes and was happier in SS2, setting the second best time, just 0.9 seconds off the stage winner, he was unable to keep that up during the remainder of the day and was fourth quickest in SS3, SS4, SS5 and SS6. He finished the first leg in third.
Right from the off then he was on the back foot and while he did make progress on Saturday, moving up from third to second, he was poor again in the first test of the day, SS7, and initially dropped behind his team-mate,
Mikko Hirvonen after only managing the fifth quickest time.
Both
BP Ford drivers’ however, managed to get the jump on Duval in SS8 and Marcus then went up to P2 in SS9, taking his first - and only - stage win of the event. With the second best in SS10, he moved away from the battle for third and he concluded day 2 12.6 seconds up on Duval.
The final day wasn’t easy for Gronholm though and with Duval on a charge the Finn came under big pressure, seemingly cracking in the very last test, when he made a mistake and went off the road. That incident cost him over a minute and he dropped behind Duval and Hirvonen, ending up fourth.
Duval meanwhile was sensational throughout the event and his performance was extremely impressive.
Indeed the Belgian won more stages than Seb - 7 versus 5 - and if he hadn’t made those crucial few errors on Saturday morning, when he spun twice in SS7 and stalled at the start of SS8, something that cost him around 20-30 seconds, he could possibly have had a very good chance to halt Loeb’s run of wins.
The fact this was only his second WRC event of the season – and his first with the Xsara WRC since his win in Australia back in 2005, also showed that this was a very special drive and with him admitting pre-event that a good performance might allow him to do more events with OMV Kronos this season, it is extremely well timed.
